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OUT OF THE QUESTION 



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BY 

Wr Di^HOWELLS 



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OC ui ZX 

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BOSTON 
TICKNOR AND COMPANY 
211 STtemont Street 



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61 



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Copyright, 1877, 
By II 0. HOUGHTOX & Co. and W. D. Howells. 



Exchange 
iHt^Vaii'y of Supreme Council ^Ai"*^' 
Aug 10, IMO 



University Pbess: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



^ 



CONTENTS. 

— ♦— 

I. In the Parlor op the Ponkwasset Hotel . 3 
II. " In Fayke Forest " 37 

III. A Slight Misunderstanding 65 

IV. Mrs. Murray's Triumph 99 

V. Blake's Saving Doubt 119 

VI. Mr. Charles Bellingham's Diplomacy . . 131 



I. 

IN THE PARLOR OF THE PONKWASSET 
HOTEL. 



OUT OF THE QUESTION. 



I. 

Miss II^^aggie Wallace and Miss Lilly Roberts. 

The Ponkwasset Hotel stands on the slope of a 
hill and fronts the UTCgular mass of Ponkwasset 
Mountain, on which the galleries and northern win- 
dows of the parlor look out. The parlor is fur- 
nished with two hair-cloth sofas, two hair-cloth easy- 
chairs, and cane-seated chairs of divers patterns ; 
against one side of the room stands a piano, near 
either end of which a door opens into the corridor ; 
in the center of the parlor a marble-topped table 
supports a state-lamp of kerosene, — a perfume by 
day, a flame by night, — and near this table sit two 
young ladies with what they call work in their 
hands and laps. 



6 Out of the Question. 

Miss Maggie Wallace^ with her left wrist curved 
in the act of rolling up a part of her work, at which 
she looks down with a very thoughtful air and a 
careworn little sigh : " I don't think I shall cut it 
bias, after all, Lilly." 

Miss Lilly Roberts, letting her work fall into her 
lap, in amazement : " Why, Maggie ! " 

Maggie : " No. Or at least I shan't decide to 
do so till I 've had Leslie's opinion on it. She has 
'perfect taste, and she could tell at a glance whether 
it would do." 

Lilly : " I wonder she is n't here, now. The 
stage must be very late." 

Maggie: "I suppose the postmaster at South 
Herodias waited to finish his supper before he 
' changed the mail,' as they call it. I was so in 
hopes she would come while they were at tea / It 
will so disgust her to see them all strung along the 
piazza and staritig their eyes out at the arrivals, 
when the stage drives up," — a horrible picture 
which Miss Wallace dreamily contemplates for a 
moment in mental vision. 

Lilly: "Why don't you go down, too, Maggie? 
Perhaps she 'd find a familiar face a relief." 



In the Parlor of the Ponhwasset Hotel. 7 

Maggie, recalled to herself by the wild sugges- 
tion : " Thank you, Lilly. I 'd rather not be 
thought so vulgar as that, by Leslie Bellingham, 
if it 's quite the same to other friends. Imagine 
her catching sight of me in that crowd ! I should 
simply wither away." 

Lilly, rebelliously : " Well, I don't see why she 
should feel authorized to overawe people in that 
manner. What does she do to show her immense 
superiority ? " 

3Iaggie : " Everything ! In the first place she 's 
so refined and cultivated, you can't live ; and then 
she takes your breath away, she 's so perfectly 
lovely ; and then she kills you dead with her style, 
and all that. She is n't the least stiff". She 's the 
kindest to other people you ever saw, and the care- 
fullest of their feelings ; and she has the grand- 
est principles, and she 's divinely impulsive ! But 
tomehow you feel that if you do anything that 's a 
little vulgar in her presence, you 'd better die at 
once. It was always so at school, and it always 
will be. Why you would no more dare to do or 
say anything just a little common, don't you know 



8 Out of the Question. 

with Leslie Bellingham " — A young lady, tall, 
slender, and with an air of delicate distinction, has 
appeared at the door of the parlor. She is of that 
type of beauty which approaches the English, with- 
out losing the American fineness and grace ; she is, 
fair, and her eyes are rather gray than blue ; her 
nose is slightly aquiline ; her expression is serious, 
but becomes amused as she listens to Miss "Wal- 
lace. She wears one of those blonde traveling- 
costumes, whose general fashionableness she some- 
how subdues into character with herself; over her 
arm she carries a shawl. She drifts lightly into 
the room. At the rustling of her dress Miss Wal- 
lace looks up, and with a cry of surprise and 
ecstasy springs from her chair, scattering the con- 
tents of her work-box in every direction over the 
floor, and flings herself into Miss Leslie Belling- 
ham's embrace. Then she starts away from her 
and gazes rapturously into her face, while they 
prettily clasp hands and hold each other at arm's 
length : " Leslie ! You heard every word ! " 



II. 

Miss Leslie Bellingham, Maggie, and Lilly. 

Leslie : " Every syllable, my child. And when 
you came to my grand principles, I simply said to 
myself, ' Then listening at keyholes is heroic,' and 
kept on eavesdropping without a murmur. Had 
you quite finished ? " 

Maggie : " O Leslie ! You know I never can 
finish when I get on that subject ! It inspires 
me to greater and greater flights every minute. 
Where is your mother ? Where is Mrs. Murray ? 
Where is the stage ? Why, excuse me ! This 
is Miss Roberts. Lilly, it's Leslie Bellingham! 
Oh, how glad I am to see you together at last ! 
Didn't the stage " — 

Leslie, having graciously bowed to Miss Rob- 
erts : " No, Maggie. The stage did n't bring me 
here. I walked." 



10 Out of the Question. 

Maggie : " Why, Leslie ! How perfectly ghast- 

Leslie : " The stas^e has done nothins: but dis- 
grace itself ever since we left the station. In the 
first place it pretended to carry ten or twelve 
people and their baggage, with two horses. Four 
horses ought n't to drag such a load up these prec- 
ipices ; and wherever the driver would stop for me, 
I insisted upon getting out to walk." 

Maggie : " How like yon, Leslie ! " 

Leslie : " Yes ; I wish the resemblance were not 
BO striking. I 'm here in character, Maggie, if you 
like, but almost nothing else. I 've nothing but a 
nand-bag to bless me with for the next twenty-four 
hours. Shall you be very much ashamed of me ? " 

Maggie : " Why, you don't mean to say you 've 
lost your trunks ? Horrors ! " 

Leslie : " No. I meau that I was n't going to let 
the driver add them to the cruel load he had al- 
ready, and I made him leave them at the station 
till to-morrow night." 

Maggie, embracing her : " Oh, you dear, good, 
grand, generous Leslie ! How — Why, but Les- 



In the Parlor of the Porikwasset Hotel. 11 

lie ! He '11 have just as many people to-morrow 
night, and your trunks besides theirs ! " 

Leslie^ with decision : " Very well ! Then I shall 
not be there to see the outrage. I will not have 
suffering or injustice of any kind inflicted in my 
presence, if I can help it. That is all." Never- 
theless, Miss Bellingham sinks into one of the arm- 
chairs with an air of some dismay, and vainly taps 
the toe of her boot with the point of her umbrella 
in a difficult interval of silence. 

Maggie, finally : " But where is your hand-bag ? " 

Leslie, with mystery , " Oh, he 's bringing it." 

Maggie: "He?" 

Leslie, with reviving spirits : " A young man, 
the good genius of the drive. He 's bringing it 
from the foot of the hill ; the stage had its final 
disaster there ; and I left him in charge of mamma 
and aunt Kate, and came on to explore and sur- 
prise, and he made me leave the bag with him, too. 
But that is n't the worst. I shall know what to 
io with the hand-bag when it gets here, but I 
ihan't know what to do with the young man." 

Maggie : " With the young man ? Why, Leslie, 



12 Out of the Question. 

a young man is worth a thousand hand-bags iu a 
place like this ! You don't know what you *re talk- 
ing about, Leslie. A young man " — 

Leslie^ rising and going toward the window: 
" My dear, he 's out of the question. You may as 
well make up your mind to that, for you '11 see at 
once that he '11 never do. He 's going to stop here, 
and as he's been very kind to us it makes his never 
doing all the harder to manage. He 's a hero, if 
you like, but if you can imagine it he is n't quite 
— well, what you 've been used to. Don't you see 
how a person could be everything that was unself- 
ish and obliging, and yet not — not " — 

Maggie, eagerly : " Oh yes ! " 

Leslie : " Well, he 's that. It seems to me that 
he 's been doing something for mamma, or aunt 
Kate, or me, ever since we left the station. To 
begin with, he gave up his place inside to one of 
us, and when he went to get on top, he found all 
the places taken there ; and so he had to sit on the 
trunks behind — whenever he rode ; for he walked 
most of the way, and helped me over the bad 
places ia the road when I insisted on getting out. 



In the Parlor of the Ponhwasset Hotel. 13 

You know how aunt Kate is, Maggie, and how 
many wants she has. Well, there was n't one of 
them that this young man did n't gratify : he 
handed her bag up to the driver on top because 
it crowded her, and handed it down because she 
could n't do without it ; he got her out and put her 
back so that she could face the front, and then 
restored her to her place because an old gentleman 
who had been traveling a long way kept falling 
asleep on her shoulder; he buttoned her curtain 
down because she was sure it was going to rain, 
and rolled it up because it made the air too close ; 
he fetched water for her ; he looked every now 
and then to see if her trunks were all right, and 
made her more and more ungrateful every minute. 
Whenever the stage broke down — as it did twice 
before the present smash-up — he befriended every^ 
body, encouraged old ladies, quieted children, and 
shamed the other men into trying to be of some 
use ; and if it had n't been for him, I don't see 
how the stage would ever have got out of its 
troubles ; he always -knew just what was the mat- 
ter, and just how to mend it. Is that the window 



14 Out of the Questions 

that commands a magiuficent prospect of Ponk- 
wasset Mountain — in the advertisement ? " 

Maggie : " The very window ! " 

Leslie: "Does it condescend to overlook so 
common a thing as the road up to the house? " 

Maggie : " Of course ; but why ? " 

Leslie^ going to the open window, and stepping 
through it upon the gallery, whither the other 
young ladies follow her, and where her voice is 
heard : " Yes, there they come ! But I can't see 
my young man. Is it possible that he 's riding ? 
No, there he is ! He was on the other side of 
the stage. Don't you see him ? Why he need n't 
carrg my hand-bag ! He certainly might have let 
that ride. I do wonder what he means by it ! Or 
is it only absent-mindedness ? Don^t let him see 
us looking ! It would be altogether too silly. Do 
let 's go in ! " 

Maggie, on their return to the parlor : " What 
a great pity it is that he won't do ! Is he hand- 
some, Leslie ? Why won't he do ? " 

Leslie : " You can tell in a moment, when you ve 
seen him, Maggie. He's perfectly respectful and 



In the Parlor of the Ponkw asset Hotel. 15 

nice, of course, but he 's no more social perspec- 
tive than — the man in the moon. He 's never ob- 
trusive, but he 's as free and equal as the Declara- 
tion of Independence ; and when you did get up 
some little perspective with him, and tried to let 
him know, don't you know, that there was such a 
thing as a vanishing point somewhere, he was sure 
to do or say something so unconscious that away 
went your perspective — one simple crush." 

Maggie : " How ridiculous ! " 

Leslie: "Yes. It was funny. But not Justin 
that way. He is n't in the least common or un- 
couth. Nobody could say that. But he 's going 
to be here two or three weeks, and it 's impossible 
not to be civil ; and it 's very embarrassing, don't 
you see ? " 

Lilly: " Let me comfort you. Miss Bellingham. 
It will be the simplest thing in the world. We 're 
all on the same level in the Ponkwasset Hotel. 
The landlord will bring him up during the evening 
and introduce him. Our table girls teach school 
in the winter and are as good as anybody. Mine 
'Jails me ' Lilly,' and I 'm so small I can't help iU 



16 Out of the QuestioJi. 

They dress up in the afternoon, and play the piano. 
The cook 's as affable, when you meet her in so- 
ciety, as can be." 

Maggie : « Lilly ! " 

Leslie, listening to Miss Roberts with whimsical 
trepidation : " Well, this certainly complicates mat- 
ters. But I think we shall be able to manage." 
At a sound of voices in the hall without, Miss Bel- 
lingham starts from her chair and runs to the cor- 
ridor, where she is heard ; " Thanks ever so much. 
So very good of you to take all this trouble. Come 
into the parlor, mamma — there 's nobody there 
but Maggie AYallace and Miss Roberts — and we '11 
leave our things there till after tea." She reen- 
ters the parlor with her mother and her aunt Kate, 
Mrs. Murray ; after whom comes Stephen Blake 
with Leslie's bag in his hand, and the wraps of the 
other ladies over his arm. His dress, which is evi- 
dently a prosperous fortuity of the clothing-store, 
lakes character from his tall, sinewy frame ; a smile 
of somewhat humorous patience lights his black 
5yes and shapes his handsome moustache, as he 
ivaits in quiet self-possession the pleasure of the 
ladies. 



III. 

Mrs. Bellingham, Mrs. Murray, and the 
Young Girls. 

Mrs. Bellingham, a matronly, middle-aged lady 
of comfortable, not cumbrous bulk, taking Miss 
Wallace by the hand and kissing her ; " My dear 
child, how pleasant it is to see you so strong again ! 
You 're a living testimony to the excellence of the 
air ! How well you look ! " 

Leslie : *« Mamma, — Miss Roberts." Mrs. Bel- 
lingham murmurously shakes hands with Miss 
Roberts, and after some kindly nods and smiles, 
and other shows of friendHness, provisionally and 
expectantly quiesces into a corner of the sofa, while 
her sister-in-law comes aggressively forward to as- 
sume the burden of conversation. 

Mrs. Murray: "Well, a more fatiguing drive 
I certainly never knew ! How do you do, Mag- 
gie?" She kisses Miss Wallace in a casual, unin- 



18 Out of the Question, 

terested way, and takes Lilly's hand. " Is n't this 
Miss Roberts ? I am Mrs. INI urray. I used to 
know your family — your uncle George, before 
that dreadful business of his. I believe it all came 
out right ; he was n't to blame ; but it was a shock- 
ing experience." Mrs. Murray turns from Lilly, 
and refers herself to the company in general : " It 
seems as if I should expire on the spot. I feel as 
if I had been packed away in my own hat-box for 
a week, and here, just as we arrive, the land- 
lord informs us that he did n't expect us till to- 
morrow night, and he has n't an empty room in the 
house ! " 

Maggie : " No room ! To-morrow night ! What 
nonsense ! Why it 's perfectly frantic ! How 
could he have misunderstood ? Why, it seems to 
me that I 've done nothing for a week past but tell 
him you were coming to-night ! " 

Mrs. Murray, sharply : " I have no doubt of it. 
But it does n't alter the state of the case. You 
may tell us to leave our things till after tea, Les- 
lie. If they can't make up beds on the sofas and 
the piano, I don't know where we 're going to pass 



In the Parlor of the Ponhwasset Hotel. 19 

.he night." In the moment of distressful sensation 
which follows Miss Wallace whispers something 
eagerly to her friend, Miss Roberts. 

Maggie, with a laughing glance at Leslie and 
her mother, and then going on with her whisper- 
ing : " Excuse the little confidence ! " 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Conspiracy, I 'm afraid. 
"What are you plotting, Maggie ? " 

Maggie, finishing her confidence : " Oh, we 
needn't make a mystery of such a little thing 
"We 're going to ofFer you one of our rooms." 

Mi'S. Bellingham : " My dear, you are going to 
do nothing of the kind. We will never allow it." 

Maggie : " Now, Mrs. Bellingham, you break 
my heart ! It 's nothing, it 's less than nothing. 7 
believe we can make room for all three of you." 

Mrs. Murray, promptly : " Let me go with you, 
young ladies. I 'm an old housekeeper, and I can 
help you plan." 

Maggie : " Oh do, Mrs. Murray. You can tell 
which rooir you 'd better take, Lilly's or mine. 
Lilly's is" — 

Mrs. Murray : " Oh ! I had forgotten that we 



iO Out of the Question. 

were detaining you ! " Mrs. Murray is about to 
.eave the room with. the two young girls, when her 
eye falls upon Blake, who is still present, with his 
burden of hand-bags and shawls. " Leave the 
things on the table, please. We are obliged to 
you." Mrs. Murray speaks with a certain finality 
of manner and tone which there is no mistaking ; 
Blake stares at her a moment, and then, without 
replying, lays down the things and turns to quit' 
the room ; at the same instant Leslie rises with a 
grand air from her mother's side, on the sofa, and 
sweeps towards him. 

Leslie^ very graciously : " Don't let our private 
afflictions drive you from a public room, Mr. — " 

Blahe: "Blake." 

Leslie : " Mr. Blake. This is my mother, Mr. 
Blake, who wishes to thank you for all your kind- 
ness to us." 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Yes, indeed, Mr. Blake, we 
are truly grateful to you." 

Leslie^ with increasing significance : " And my 
aunt, Mrs. Murray ; and my friend. Miss Wallace ; 
and Miss Roberts." Blake bows to each of the 



In the Parlor of the Ponhwasset Hotel. 21 

ladies as they are named, but persists in his move- 
ment to quit the room ; Leslie impressively offers 
him her hand. " Must you go ? Thank you, ever, 
ever so much ! " She follows him to the door in 
his withdrawal, and then turns and confronts her 
aunt with an embattled front of defiance. 

Maggie, with an effort breaking the embarrassing 
silence : " Come, Lilly. Let us go and take a 
look at our resources. We '11 be back in a moment 
Mrs. Bellinfijham." 



IV. 

Mrs. Bellingham and Leslie ; afterwards Mrs, 
Murray and Maggie. 

Leslie, coming abruptly forward as her aunt goea 
out with the two young girls, and drooping meekly 
in front of her mother, who remains seated on the 
sofa : " Well, mamma ! " 

Mrs. Bellingham, tranquilly contemplating her 
for a moment: "Well, Leslie!" She pauses, and 
again silently regards her daughter. " Perhaps you 
may be said to have overdone it." 

Leslie, passionately: " I can't help it, mother! 
I could n't see him sent away in that insolent man- 
ner, I don't care who or what he is. Aunt Kate's 
tone was outrageous, atrocious, hideous ! And 
after accepting, yes, demanding every service he 
could possibly render, the whole afternoon ! It 
made me blush for her, and I was n't going to 
Uand it." 



In the Parlor of the Ponkwasset Hotel. 23 

Mrs. Bellingham : " If you mean by all that that 
your poor aunt is a very ungracious and exacting 
woman, I shall not dispute you. But she.'s your 
father's sister ; and she 's very much older than you. 
You seem to have forgotten, too, that your mother 
was present to do any justice that was needed. It 's 
very unfortunate that he should have been able to 
do us so many favors, but that can't be helped now. 
It 's one of the risks of coming to these out-of-the- 
way places, that you 're so apt to be thrown in with 
nondescript people that you don't know how to ge\ 
rid of afterwards. And now that he 's been so cor- 
dially introduced to us all ! Well, I hope you 
won't have to be crueller in the end, my dear, than 
your aunt meant to be in the beginning. So far, 
of course, he has behaved with perfect delicacy ; 
but you must see yourself, Leslie, that even as a 
mere acquaintance he 's quite out of the question ; 
that however kind and thoughtful he 's been, and 
ni one could have been more so, he is n't a gentle- 
man." 

Leslie, impatiently : " Well, then, mother, I am! 
And so are you. And I think we are bound to 



24 Out of the Question, 

behave like gentlemen at any cost. I did n't mean 
to ignore you. I did n't consider. I acted as I 
thought Charley would have done." 

Mrs, Bellingham : " Oh, my dear, my dear 
Don't you see there 's a very important difference ? 
Your brother is a man, and he can act without ref- 
erence to consequences. But you are a young lady, 
and you can't be as gentlemanly as you like without 
being liable to misinterpretation. I shall expect 
you to behave very discreetly indeed from this time 
forth. We must consider now how our new friend 
can be kindly, yet firmly and promptly, dropped." 

Leslie : " Oh, it 's another of those embarrass- 
ments that aunt Kate 's always getting me into ! I 
was discreet about it till she acted so horridly. 
You can ask Maggie if I did n't talk in the wisest 
way about it ; like a perfect — owl. I saw it just 
as you do, mamma, and I was going to drop him, 
and so I will, yet ; but I could n't see him so un- 
gratefully trampled on. It 's all her doing ! Who 
wanted to come here to this out-of-the-way place ? 
Why, aunt Kate, — when I was eager to go to 
Conway ! I declare it 's too bad I " 



In the Parlor of the Ponhwasset Hotel. 25 

Mrs. Bellingham : " That will do, Leslie." 

Leslie : " And now she 's gone off with those 
poor girls to crowd them out of house and home, I 
suppose. It 's a shame ! Why did you let her, 
mamma ? " 

Mrs. Bellingham : '*' For the same reason that I 
let you talk on, my dear, when I 've bidden you 
stop." 

Leslie : " Oh, you dear, kind old mamma, you ! 
Yoii Ve a gentleman, and you always were ! I 
only wish I could be half like you ! " She throws 
her arms round her mother's neck and kisses her. 
" I know you 're right about this matter, but you 
mustn't expect me to acknowledge that aunt Kate 
is. If you both said exactly the same thing, you 
would be right and she would be wrong, you'd say 
it so differently ! " 

Mrs. Murray, who returns alone with signs of 
discontent and perplexity, and flings herself into 
a chair : " Their rooms are mere coops, and I don't 
see how even two of us are to squeeze into one of 
them. It 's little better than impertinence to offer 
>t to us. I've been down to see the landlord again, 



26 Out of the Question. 

and you'll be pleased to know, Marion, that the 
only vacant room in the house had been engaged 
by the person to whom we 've all just had the 
honor of an introduction." Leslie makes an im- 
petuous movement, as if she were about to speak, 
but at a gesture from her mother she restrains her- 
self, and Mrs. Murray continues : " Of course, if 
he had been a gentleman, in the lowest sense of 
the word, he would have offered his room to ladies 
who had none, at once. As long as he could make 
social capital out of his obtrusive services to us he 
was very profuse with them, but as soon as it came 
to a question of real self-sacrifice — to giving up his 
own ease and comfort for a single night" — A 
bell rings, and at the sound Mrs. Bellingham rises. 
3Irs. Bellingham : " I suppose that's for supper. 
I think a cup of tea will put a cheerfuller face on 
our affairs. I don't at all agree with you about 
Mr. Blake's obligation to give up his room, nor 
about his services to us this afternoon ; I 'm sui-e 
common justice requires us to acknowledge that he 
was everything that was kind and thoughtful. Oli, 
vou good child ! " — as Miss Wallace appears at 



In the Parlor of the Ponhwasset Hotel. 27 

the door, — " have you come to show us the way 
to supper ? Are you quite sure you Ve not gone 
without tea on our account as well as given up 
your room ? " She puts her arm fondly round the 
young girl's waist, and presses her cheek against 
her own breast. 

Maggie, with enthusiasm; Oh, Mrs. Bellingham, 
you know I would n't ask anything better than to 
starve on your account. I wish I had rCt been 
to tea ! I 'm afraid that you '11 think the room 
is a very slight offering when you come to see it 
— it is such a little room ; why, when I took Mrs. 
Murray into it, it seemed all at once as if I saw it 
through the wrong end of an opera-glass — it did 
dwindle so ! " 

Leslie : " Never mind, Maggie ; you 're only too 
good, as it is. If your room was an inch bigger, 
we couldn't bear it. I hope you may be without a 
roof over your head yourself, some day ! Can 1 
say anything handsomer than that ? Don't wait 
for me, mamma ; I '11 find the dining-ioom myself. 
r 'm rather too crumpled even for a houseless wan- 
derer." She opens her bag where it stands on the 



28 Out of the Question. 

table. " I am going to make a flying toilet at one 
of these glasses. Do you think any one will come 
in, Maggie ? " 

Maggie : " There is n't the least danger. This is 
the parlor of the " transients," as they call them, 
— the occasional guests, — and Lilly and I have it 
mostly to ourselves when there are no transients. 
The regular boarders stay in the lower parlor. 
Shan't I help you, Leslie ? " 

Leslie^ rummaging through her bag: "No, in- 
deed ! It 's only a question of brush and hair-pins. 
Do go with mamma ! " As Maggie obeys, Leslie 
finds her brush, and going to one of the mirrors 
touches the blonde masses of her hair, and then re- 
mains a moment, lightly turning her head from side 
to side to get the effect. She suddenly claps her 
hand to one ear. " Oh, horrors ! That ear drop 's 
gone again ! " She runs to the table, reopens her 
bag, and searches it in every part, talking rapidly 
to herself. " Well, really, it seems as if sorrows 
would never end ! To think of that working out a 
third time ! To think of my coming away without 
getting the clasp fixed ! And to think of my not 



In the Parlor of the Ponhw asset Hotel. 29 

leaving them in my trunk at the station ! Oh 
dear me, I shall certainly go wild ! What shall I 
do ? It is n't in the bag at all. It must be on the 
floor." Keeping her hand in helpless incredulity 
upon the ear from which the jewel is missing, she 
scrutinizes the matting far and near, with a coun- 
tenance of acute anguish. Footsteps are heard 
approaching the door, where they hesitatingly ar- 
rest themselves. " Have you come back for me ? 
Oh, I Ve met with such a calamity ! I 've lost 
one of my ear-rings. I could cry. Do come and 
help me mouse for it." There is no response to 
this invitation, and Leslie, lifting her eyes, in a 
little dismay confronts the silent intruder. " Mr. 
Blake ! " 



V. 

Leslie and Blake. 

Blake : " Excuse me. I expected to find your 
mother here. I did n't mean to disturb " — 

Leslie, haughtily : " There 's no disturbance. It 's 
a public room : I had forgotten that. Mamma 
has gone to tea. I thought it was my friend Miss 
Wallace. I " — With a flash of indignation : 
*' When you knew it was n't, why did you let 
me speak to you in that way ? " 

Blake, with a smile : " I could n't know whom 
you took me for, and I had n't time to prevent youi 
speaking." 

Leslie : " You remained." 

Blake, with a touch of resentment tempering his 
amusement : " I could n't go away after I had come 
without speaking to you. It was Mrs. Bellingham 
I was looking for. I 'm sorry not to find her, and 
I '11 go, now." 



In the Parlor of the Ponhwasset Hotel. 3] 

Leslie, hastily : " Oh no ! I beg your pardon. 
I did n't mean " — 

Blake, advancing toward her, and stooping to 
pick up something from the floor, near the table : 
" Is this what you lost ? — if I Ve a right to know 
that you lost anything." 

Leslie: " Oh, my ear-ring! Oh, thanks! How 
did you see it ? I thought I had looked and felt 
everywhere." A quick color flies over her face as 
she takes the jewel from the palm of his handa 
She turns to the mirror, and, seizing the tip of her 
delicate ear between the thumb and forefinger of 
one hand, hooks the pendant into place with the 
other, and then gives her head a little shake ; the 
young man lightly sighs. She turns toward him, 
with the warmth still lingering in her cheeks. 
" I 'm ever so much obliged to you, Mr. Blake. I 
wish I had your gift of doing all sorts of services 
. — favors — to people. I wish I could find some- 
thing for you." 

BlaJce : " I wish you could — if it were the key 
to my room, which I came back in hopes of find- 
ing. I 've mislaid it somewhere, and I thought I 



32 Out of the Question, 

might have put it down with your shawls here on 
the table." Leslie promptly lifts one of the 
shawls, and the key drops from it. " That 's it 
Miss Bellingham, I have a favor to ask : will you 
give this key to your mother ? " 

Leslie : " This key ? " 

Blake : " I have found a place to sleep at a 
farm-house just down the road, and I want your 
mother to take my room ; I have n't looked into it 
yet, and I don't know that it 's worth taking. But 
I suppose it 's better than no room at all ; and I 
know you .have none." 

Leslie, with cold hauteur, after looking absently 
at him for a moment : " Thanks. It 's quite im- 
possible. My mother would never consent." 

Blake : " The room will stand empty, then. I 
meant to give it up from the first, — as soon as I 
found that you were not provided for, — but I 
hated to make a display of it before all the people 
down there in the office. I '11 go now and leave 
the key with the landlord, as I ought to have done, 
without troubling you. But — I had hardly the 
chance of doing so after we came here," 



In the Parlor of the Ponkwasset Hotel. 33 

Leslie, with enthusiasm : " Oh, Mr. Blake, do 
you really mean to give us your room after you 've 
been so odiously — Oh, it 's too bad ; it 's too 
bad ! You must n't ; no, you shall not." 

Blahe : " I will leave the key on the table here 
Good night. Or — I shall not see you in the 
morning : perhaps I had better say good-by." 

Leslie : " Good-by ? In the morning ? " 

Blake : " I 've changed my plans, and I 'm going 
away to-morrow. Good-by." 

Leslie : " Going — Mamma will be very sorry 
to — Oh, Mr. Blake, I hope you are not going 
because — But indeed — I want you to be- 
lieve " — 

Blake, devoutly : " I believe it. Good-by ! " 
He turns away to go, and Leslie, standing bewil- 
dered and irresolute, lets him leave the room; 
then she hastens to the door after him, and encoun- 
ters her mother. 

.. LIBRARY 

** OFTHE 

8UP.'.C0UNCIL| 
80.".JURISDICTI0N. 



VI. 

Mrs. Belxingham and Leslie ; t^en Mrs. 
Murray. 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Well, Leslie. Are you 
quite ready ? We went to look at Maggie's room 
before going down to tea. It 's small, but we shall 
manage somehow. Come, dear. She 's waiting 
For us at the head of the stairs. Why, Leslie ! " 

Leslie, touching her handkerchief to her eyes: 
•* I was a little overwrought, mamma. I 'm tired." 
After a moment : " Mamma, Mr. Blake " — 

Mrs. Bellingham, with a look at her daughter : 
" I met him in the hall." 

Leslie : " Yes, he has been here ; and I thought 
I had lost one of my ear-rings ; and of course he 
found it on the floor the instant he came in ; 
and" — 

Mrs. Murray, surging into the room, and going 
op to the table : " Well, Marion, the tea — What 



In the Parlor of the Ponkwasset Hotel. 35 

key is this ? What in the world is Leslie crying 
about?" 

Leslie, with supreme disregard of her aunt, and 
adamantine self-control : " Mr. Blake had come " — 
she hands the key to Mrs. Bellingham — " to offer 
you the key of his room. He asked me to give 
it." 

Mrs. Bellinghayn : " The key of his room ? " 

Leslie : " He offers you his room ; he had always 
(neant to offer it." 

Mrs. Bellingham, gravely : " Mr. Blake had no 
right to know that we had no room. It is too great 
n kindness. We can't accept it, Leslie. I hope 
you told him so, my dear." 

Leslie : " Yes, mamma. But he said he was going 
lo lodge at one of the farm-houses in the neighbor- 
Uood, and the room would be vacant if you did n't 
take it. I could n't prevent his leaving tho key." 

Mrs. Bellingham : " That is all very well. But 
U does n't alter the case, as far as we are concerned. 
It is very good of Mr. Blake, but after what has oc- 
^<irred, it's simply impossible. We can't take it." 

Mrs. Murray : " Occurred ? Not take it ? Of 



36 Out of the Question. 

course we will take it, Marion ! I certainly am as- 
tonished. The man will get a much better bed at 
the farmer's than he's accustomed to. You talk 
as if it were some act of self-sacrifice. I 've no 
doubt he 's made the most of it. I 've no doubt 
he's given it an effect of heroism — or tried to. 
But that you should fall in with his vulgar con- 
ception of the affair, Marion, and Leslie should be 
affected to tears by his magnanimity, is a little too 
comical. One would think, really, that he had im- 
periled life and limb on our account. All this sen- 
timent about a room on the third floor ! Give the 
key to me, Marion." She possesses herself of it 
from Mrs. Bellingham's passive hand. " Leslie will 
wish to stay with you, so as to be near her young 
friends. / will occupy this vacant room. " 



II. 

"IN FAYRE FOREST." 



1. 

Two Tramps. 

Under the shelter of some pines near a lonely 
by-road, in the neighborhood of the Ponkwasset 
Hotel, lie two tramps asleep. One of them, hav- 
ing made his bed of the pine-boughs, has pillowed 
his head npon the bundle he carries by day ; the 
other is stretched, face downward, on the thick 
brown carpet of pine-needles. The sun, which 
strikes through the thin screen of the trees upon 
the bodies of the two men, is high in the heavens. 
The rattle of wheels is heard from time to time 
on the remoter highway ; the harsh clatter of a 
kingfisher, poising over the water, comes from the 
direction of the river near at hand. A squirrel de- 
scends the trunk of an oak near the pines under 
which the men lie, and at sight of them stops, 
barks harshly, and then, as one of them stirs in hia 



40 Out of the Question. 

sleep, whisks back into the top of tlie oak. It is 
the luxurious tramp on the pine-boughs who stirs, 
and who alertly opens his eyes and sits up in hia 
bed, as if the noisy rush of the squirrel had startled 
him from his sleep. 

First Tramp, casting a malign glance at the top 
of the oak : " If I had a fair shot at you with this 
club, my fine fellow, I 'd break you of that trick of 
waking people before the bell rings in the morning, 
and I 'd give 'em broiled squirrel for breakfast when 
they did get up." He takes his bundle into hia 
lap, and, tremulously untying it, reveals a motlej 
heajD of tatters ; from these he searches out a flask, 
which he holds against the light, shakes at his ear, 
and inverts upon his lips. " Not a drop ; not a 
square smell, even ! I dreamt it." He lies down 
with a groan, and remains with his head pillowed 
in his hands. Presently he reaches for his stick, 
and again rising to a sitting posture strikes his 
sleeping comrade across the shoulders. " Get 
up!" 

Second Tramp, who speaks with a slight brogue, 
oriskly springing to his feet, and rubbing his shoul- 
ders : " And what for, my strange bedfellow ? " 



"^ Fayre Forest:' 41 

First Tramp : " For breakfast. What do peo- 
jple generally get up for in the morning ? " 

Second Tramp : " Upon my soul, I 'd as soor 
have had mine in bed ; I 've a day of leisure be- 
fore me. And let me say a word to you, my 
friend : the next time you see a gentleman dream- 
ing of one of the most elegant repasts in the world, 
and just waiting for his stew to cool, don't you in- 
trude upon him with that little stick of yours. I 
don't care for a stroke or two in sport, but when I 
think of the meal I 've lost, I could find it in my 
lieart to break your head for you, you ugly brute. 
Have you got anything to eat there in your ward- 
.TObe ? " 

First Tramp : " Not a crumb." 

Second Tramp : " Or to drink ? " 

First Tramp : " Not a drop." 

Second Tramp : " Or to smoke ? " 

First Tramp : " No." 

Second Tramp : " Faith, you 're nearer a broken 
head than ever, me friend. Wake a man out of a 
dream of that sort ! " 

First Tramp : " I 've had enough of this. 
What do you intend to do ? " 



42 Out of the Question. 

Second Tramp : " I 'm going to assume the 
character of an impostor, and pretend at the next 
farm-house that I have n't had any breakfast, and 
have n't any money to buy one. It 's a bare-faced 
deceit, I know, but " — looking down at his broken 
shoes and tattered clothes — "I flatter myself that 
I dress the part pretty well. To be sure, the 
women are not as ready to listen as they were 
once. The tramping-trade is overdone ; there 's 
too many in it ; the ladies can't believe we 're all 
destitute ; it don't stand to reason." 

First Tramp : " I 'm tired of the whole thing." 
Second Tramp : " I don't like it myself. But 
there 's worse things. There 's work, for example. 
By my soul, there 's nothing disgusts me like these 
places where they tell you to go out and hoe pota- 
toes, and your breakfast will be ready in an hour. 
I never could work with any more pleasure on an 
empty stomach than a full one. And the poor 
devils always think they 've done something so fine 
when they say that, and the joke 's so stale ! I 
can tell them I'm not to be got rid of so easy. 
I'm not the lazy, dirty vagabond I look, at all; 



"iw Fayre Forest." 48 

I'm the inevitable result of the conflict between 
labor and capital; I'm the logical consequence of 
the prevailing corruption. I read it on the bit of 
newspaper they gave me round my dinner, yester- 
day ; it was cold beef of a quality that you don't 
often find in the country." 

First Tramp, sullenly : " I 'm sick of the whole 
thing. I 'm going out of it." 

Second Tramp : " And what '11 you do ? Are ye 
going to work ? " 

First Tramp : " To work ? No ! To steal." 

Second Tramp : " Faith, I don't call that going 
out of it, then. It 's quite in the line of business. 
You 're no bad dab at a hen-roost, now, as I know 
very well ; and for any little thing that a gentle- 
man can shove under his coat, while the lady of the 
house has her back turned buttering his lunch for 
him, I don't know the man I 'd call master." 

First Tramp : "If I could get a man to tell me 
the time of day by a watch I liked, I'd as lief 
knock him over as look at him." 

Second Tramp : " Oh, if it 's high-way robbery 
jou mean, partner, I don't follow you." 



44 Out of the Question. 

First Tramp : " What 's the difference ?" 

Second Tramp : " Not much, if you take it one 
way, but a good deal if you take it another. It 's 
the difference between petty larceny and grand lar- 
ceny ; it 's the difference between three months in 
the House of Correction and ten years in the State's 
Prison, if you 're caught, not to mention the risks 
of the profession." 

First Tramp : " I 'd take the risks if I saw my 
chance." He lies down with his arms crossed under 
his head, and stares up into the pine. His comrade 
glances at him, and then moves stiffly out from the 
shelter of the trees, and, shading his eyes with one 
hand, peers down the road. 

Second Tramp: " I did n't know but I might see 
your chance, jjartner. You would n't like an old 
gentleman with a load of potatoes to begin on, would 
ye ? There 's one just gone up the cross-road. And 
yonder goes an umbrella-mender. I'm afraid we 
shan't take any purses to speak of, in this neighbor- 
hood. Whoosh! Wait a bit — here's somebody 
coming this way." The first tramp is sufficiently 
Interested to sit up. " Faith, here 's your chance 



" In Fayre ForesV 45 

at last, then, if you 're in earnest, my friend ; but it 
stands six feet in its stockings, and it carries a stick 
as well as a watch. I won't ask a share of the plun- 
der, partner ; I 've rags enough of my own without 
wanting to divide your property with the gentleman 
coming." He goes back and lies down at the foot 
of one of the trees, while the other, who has risen 
from his pine-boughs, comes cautiously forward ; 
after a glance at the approaching wayfarer he flings 
away his cudgel, and, taking a pipe from his pocket 
drops into a cringing attitude. The Irishman grins. 
In another moment Blake appears from under the 
cover of the woods and advances with long strides, 
striking with his stick at the stones in the road as 
he comes on, in an absent-minded fashion. 



n. 

15LAKE and the Tramps. 

I^irst Tramp : " I say, mister ! " Blake looks 
up, and his eye falls upon the squalid figure of the 
tramp ; he stops. " Could n't you give a poor fellow 
a little tobacco for his pipe ? A smoke comes good, 
if you don 't happen to know where you 're going 
to get your breakfast." 

Second Tramp, coming forward, with his pipe in 
his hand : " True for you, partner. A little tobacco 
in the hand is worth a deal of breakfast in the bush." 
Blake looks from one to the other, and then takes 
a paper of tobacco from his pocket and gives it to 
the first tramp, who helps himself and passes it to 
his comrade ; the latter offers to return it after fill- 
ing his pipe ; Blake declines it with a wave of his 
hand, and walks on. 

Second Tramp, calling after him : " God bless 
YOU ! May you never want it ! " 



^^ In Fayre Forest.'^ 47 

First Tramp : " Thank you, mister. YouWe a 
gentleman ! " 

Blake : " All right." He goes out of sight under 
the trees down the road, and then suddenly reap- 
pears and walks up to the two tramps, who remain 
where he left them and are feeling in their pockets 
for a match. " Did one of you call me a gentle- 
man ? " 

First Tramp : " Yes, I did, mister. No offense 
in that, I hope ? " 

Blake : " No, but why did you do it ? " 

First Tramp: "Well, you didn't ask us why 
we did n't go to work ; and you did n't say that 
men who had n't any money to buy breakfast had 
better not smoke ; and you gave us this tobacco. 
I '11 call any man a gentleman that '11 do that." 

Blake : " Oh, that 's a gentleman, is it ? All 
right." He turns to go away, when the second 
tramp detains him. 

Second Tramp : " Does your honor happen to 
have ever a match about you ? " Blake takes out 
his match-case and strikes a light. " God bless 
your honor. You 're a real gentleman." 



48 Out of the Question. 

Blake : " Then this makes me a gentleman past 
a doubt?" 

Second Tramp : " Sure, it does that." 

Blake : " I 'm glad to have the matter settled." 
He walks on absently as before, and the tramps 
stand staring a moment in the direction in which 
he has gone. 

Second Tramp, who goes back to the tree where 
he has been sitting and stretches himself out with 
his head on one arm for a quiet smoke : " That *s 
,'i queer genius. By my soul, I 'd like to take the 
icoad in his company. Sure, I think there is n't 
the woman alive would be out of cold victuals and 
old clothes when he put that handsome face of his 
in at the kitchen window." 

First Tramp, looking down the road : " I wonder 
if that fellow could have a drop of spirits about 
him ! I say, mister ! " calling after Blake. " Hello, 
there, I say ! " 

Second Tramp : " It 's too late, my worthy 
friend. He '11 never hear you ; and it 's not likel;^ 
»*ie 'd come back to fill your flask for you, if he did. 
A gentleman of his character 'd think twice before 



"7^ Fayre Forest" 49 

he gave a tramp whiskey. Tobacco 's another 
thing." He takes out the half-paper of tobacco, 
and looks at the label on it. " What an extrava- 
gant dog! It's the real cut-cavendish; and it 
smells as nice as it smokes. This luxury is what 's 
destroying the country. ' With the present reck- 
less expenditure in all classes of the population, 
and the prodigious influx of ignorant and degraded 
foreigners, there must be a constant increase of 
tramps.' True for you, Mr. Newspaper. 'T woulc? 
have been an act of benevolence to take his watcl 
from him, partner, and he never could tell ho\i 
fast he was going to ruin. But you can't always 
befriend a man six feet high and wiry as a cat." 
He offers to put the tobacco into his pocket again, 
when his comrade slouches up, and makes a clutch 
at it. 

First Tramp : " I want that." 
Second Tramp : " Why, so ye do ! " 
First Tramp : " It 's mine." 
Second Tramp : " I 'm keeping it for ye." 
First Tramp : " I tell you the man gave it to 
me." 



50 Out of the Question. 

Second Tramp : " And he would n t take it 
back from me. Ah, will you, ye brute ? " The 
other seizes the wrist of the hand with which the 
Irishman holds the tobacco ; they wrestle together, 
when women's voices are heard at some distance 
down the road. "Whoosh! Ladies coming." The 
6rst tramp listens, kneeling. The Irishman springs 
to his feet and thrusts the paper of tobacco into his 
pocket, and, coming quickly forward, looks down 
the road. " Fortune favors the brave, partner ! 
Here comes another opportunity — three of them, 
faith, and pretty ones at that ! Business before 
pleasure ; I '11 put off that beating again ; it 's all. 
Ihe better for keeping. Besides, it's not the thing, 
quarreling before ladies." He is about to crouch 
down again at the foot of the tree as before, when 
his comrade hastily gathers up his bundle, and seiz- 
ing him by the arm drags him back into the thicket 
behind the pine-trees. After a moment or two, 
three young ladies come sauntering slowly along 
the road. 



III. 

Leslie, Maggie, and Lilly •, then Leslie alone. 

Lilly, delicately sniffing the air : " Fee, fi, fo, 
fum ; I smell the pipe of an Irishman." 

Leslie : " Never ! I know the flavor of refined 
tobacco, thanks to a smoking brother. Oh, what a 
lonely road ! " 

Lilly: "This loneliness is one of the charms ot 
the Ponkwasset neighborhood. When you 're once 
out of sight of the hotel and the picnic-grounds 
you'd think you were a thousand miles away from 
civilization. Not an empty sardine-box or a torn 
paper collar anywhere ! This scent of tobacco is 
an unheard-of intrusion." 

Maggie, archly : " Perhaps Mr. Blake went this 
way. Does he smoke, Leslie?" 

Leslie, coldly : " How should I know, Maggie ? 
A gentleman would hardly smoke in ladies' com- 



52 Out of the Question. 

pany — strange ladies." She sinks down upon a 
log at the wayside, and gazes slowly about with an 
air of fastidious criticism that gradually changes to 
a rapture of admiration. " Well, I certainly think 
that, take it all in all, I never saw anything more 
fascinating. It 's wond-erful ! This little nook it- 
self, with that brown carpet of needles under the 
pines, and that heavy fringe of ferns there, behind 
those trunks ; and then those ghostly birches 
stretching up and away, yonder — thousands o 
them ! How tall and slim and stylish, they are. 
And how they do march into the distance ! I never 
saw such multitudes ; and their lovely paleness 
makes them look as if one saw them by moonlight. 
Oh, oh ! How perfectly divine ! If one could 
only have their phantom-like procession painted ! 
But Corot himself could n't paint them. Oh, I 
must make some sort of memorandum — I won't 
have the presumption to call it a sketch." She 
takes a sketch-book from under her arm, and lays 
*t on her knees, and then with her pencil nervously 
traces on the air the lines of the distant birches. 
" Yes ; I must. I never shall see them so beauti- 



"/w Fayre Forest" 53 

ful again ! Just jot down a few lines, and wash in 
the background when I get to the hotel. But 
girls ; you must n't stay ! Go on and get the flow- 
ers, and I '11 be done by the time you 're back. I 
could n't bear to have you overlooking me ; I 've 
all the sensitiveness of a great artist. Do go ! 
But don't be gone long." She begins to work at 
her sketch, without looking at them. 

Maggie : " I 'm so glad, Leslie. I knew you 'd 
be perfectly fascinated with this spot, and so I 
did n't tell you about it. I wanted it to burst upon 
you." 

Leslie, with a little impatient surprise, as if she 
had thought they were gone : " Yes, yes ; never 
mind. You did quite right. Don't stay long." 
She continues to sketch, looking up now and then 
at the scene before her ; but not glancing at her 
companions, who walk away from her some paces, 
when Miss Wallace comes back. 

Maggie : " What time is it, Leslie ? Leslie ! " 

Leslie, nervously : " Oh ! What a start you gave 
•ne." Glancing at her watch : " It 's nine minutes 
past ten — I mean ten minutes past nine." Still 
without looking at her : " Be back soon." 



54 Out of the Question. 

Maggie : " Oh, it is n't far. Again she turns 
away with Miss Roberts, but before they are quite 
out of sight Leslie springs to her feet and runs 
after them. 

Leslie : " Oh, girls — girls ! " 

Maggie, anxiously, starting back toward her: 
"What? What?" 

Leslie, dreamily, as she returns to her place and 
sits down : " Oh, nothing. I just happened to 
think." She closes her eyes to a narrow line, and 
looks up at the birches. " There are so many hor- 
rid stories in the papers. But of course there can't 
be any in this out-of-the-way place, so far from the 
cities." 

Maggie : " Any what, Leslie ? " • 

Leslie, remotely ; " Tramps." 

Maggie, scornfully : " There never was such a 
thing heard of in the whole region." 

Leslie : " I thought not." She is again absorbed 
in study of the birches ; and, after a moment of 
hesitation, the other two retreat down the road 
once more, lingering a little to look back in admi- 
ration of her picturesque devotion to art, and then 



" In Fay re For est. ^^ 55 

vanishing under the flickering light and shadow. 
Leslie works diligently on, humming softly to her- 
self, and pausing now and then to look at the 
birches, for which object she rises at times, and, 
gracefully bending from side to side, or stooping 
forward to make sure of some effect that she has 
too slightly glimpsed, resumes her seat and begins 
anew. " No, that won't do ! " — vigorously plying 
her india-rubber on certain lines of the sketch. 
" How stupid ! " Then beginning to draw again, 
ttnd throwing back her head for the desired dis- 
tance on her sketch : " Ah, that 's more like. Still, 
nobody could accuse it of slavish fidelity. Well ! " 
She sings : — 

" Through starry palm-roofs on Old Nile 
The full-orbed moon looked clear; 
The bulbul sang to the crocodile, 
' Ah, why that bitter tear ? ' 

* * With thy tender breast against the thorn, 
Why that society-smile ? ' 
The bird was mute. In silent scorn 
Slow winked the crocodile." 

•' How perfectly ridiculous ! Slow winked " — 



56 Out of the Question. 

Miss Bellingham alternately applies pencil and 
rubber — " slow winked the croco — I never shall 
get that right ; it 's too bad ! — dile." While she 
continues to sketch, and sing da capo, the tramps 
creep stealthily from their covert. Apparently, in 
accordance with some preconcerted plan, the sur- 
lier and huger ruffian goes down the road in ther 
direction taken by Leslie's friends, and the Irish- 
man stations himself unobserved at her side and 
supports himself with both hands resting upon the 
top of his stick, in an attitude of deferential pa- 
tience and insinuating gallantry She ceases sing< 
ing and looks up. 



IV. 

The Young Girls and the Tramps. 

Second Tramp : " Not to be interrupting you, 
miss," — Leslie stares at his grinning face in dumb 
and motionless horror, — " would ye tell a poor 
traveler the time of day, so that he need n't be eat- 
ing his breakfast prematurely, if he happens to get 
any?" 

First Tramp, from his station down the road, 
in a hoarse undertone : " Snatch it out of her 
belt, you fool ! Snatch it ! He 's coming back. 
Quick ! " Leslie starts to her feet. 

Second Tramp : " Ye see, miss, my friend 's im- 
patient." Soothingly : " Just let me examine your 
watch. I give ye my honor I won't hurt you; 
don't lose your presence of mind, my dear; don't 
be frightened." As she shrinks back, he clutches 
at her watch-chain. 



58 Out of the Question. 

Leslie, in terror-stricken simplicity : " Oh, oh, 
no ! Don't ! Don't take my watch. My father 
gave it to me — and he 's dead." 

Second Tramp : " Then he '11 never miss it, my 
dear. Don't oblige me to be rude to a lady. 
Give it here, at once, that 's a dear." 

First Tramp : " Hurry, hurry ! He 's coming ! '' 
As the Irishman seizes her by the wrist, Leslie 
utters one wild shriek after another, to which the 
other young girls respond, as they reappear under 
the trees down the road. 

Maggie : " Leslie, Leslie ! What is it ? " 

LiUg, at sight of Leslie struggling with the 
tramp : " Oh, help, help, help, somebody — do ! " 

Maggie: "Murder!" 

First Tramp, rushing past them to the aid of his 
fellow : " Clap your hand over her mouth ! Stop 
her noise, somehow ! Choke her ! " He springs 
forward, and while the Irishman stifles her cries 
with his hands, the other tears the watch-chain 
loose from its fastening. They suddenly release 
her, and as she reels gasping and swooning away, 
some one has the larger villain by the throat, who 



"/?^ Fayre Forest." 59 

Btruggles with his assailant backward into the un- 
dergrowth, whence the crash of broken branches, 
with cries and curses, makes itself heard. Follow- 
ing this tumult comes the noise of a rush through 
the ferns, and then rapid footfalls, as of flight and 
pursuit on the hard road, that die away in the dis- 
tance, while Maggie and Lilly hang over Leslie, 
striving to make out from her incoherent moans 
and laments what has happened. 

Maggie : " Oh, Leslie, Leslie, Leslie, what was 
it? Do try to think! Do try to tell! Oh, I 
shall go wild if you don't tell what 's the matter." 

Leslie : " Oh, it was — Oh, oh, I feel as if I 
should never be clean again ! How can I endure 
it ? That filthy hand on my mouth ! Their 
loathsome rags, their sickening faces ! Ugh ! Oh, 
I shall dream of it as long as I live ! Why, why 
did I ever come to this horrid place ? " 

3Iaggie : " Leslie, — dear, good Leslie, — what 
'vas it all ? " 

Leslie, panting and sobbing : " Oh, two horrid, 
disgusting men ! Don't ask me ! And they told 
me to give them my watch, and I begged them not 



60 Out of the Question. 

to take it. And one was a hideous little Irish 
wretch, and he kept running all round me, and oh, 
dear ! the other was worse than he was ; yes, 
worse ! And he told him — oh, girls ! — to choke 
me ! And he came running up, and then the other 
put one of his hands over my mouth, and I 
could n't breathe ; and I thought I should die ; but 
I wasn't going to let the wretches have my watch, 
if I could help it ; and I kept struggling ; and all 
at once they ran away, and " — putting her hand 
to her belt — " Oh, it's gone, it's gone, it 's gone ! 
Oh, papa, papa ! The watch you gave me is 
gone ! " She crouches down upon the lug, and 
leaning her head upon her hands against the trunk 
of a tree gives way to her tears and sobs, while 
the others kneel beside her in helpless distress. 
On this scene Blake emerges from the road down 
which the steps were heard. His face is pale, and 
he advances with his right arm held behind him, 
while the left clasps something which he extends 
as he speaks. 



V. 

Blake and the Young Girls. 

Blahe, after a pause in which he stands looking 
at Leslie unheeded by the others : " Here is your 
watch, Miss Bellingham." 

Leslie^ whirling swiftly round to her feet : " My 
watch? Oh, where did you find it?" She springs 
towards him and joyfully seizing it from his hand 
scans it eagerly, and then kisses it in a rapture. 
" Safe, safe, safe ! Not hurt the least ! My pre- 
cious gift ! Oh, how glad I am ! It 's even going 
yet ! How did you get it ? Where did you get 
it?" 

jBlake, who speaks with a certain painful effort 
while he moves slowly away backward from her : 
'* I found it — I got it from the thief." 

Leslie, looking confusedly at him: "How did 
you know they had it ? " 



62 Out of the Question. 

Maggie : " Oh, it was you, Mr. Blake, who came 
flying past us, and drove them away ! Did you 
have to fight them ? Oh, did they hurt you? " 

Leslie : " It was you — Why, how pale you 
look ! There 's blood on your face ! Why, where 
were you ? How did it all happen ? It was you 
that drove them away ? You ? And I never 
thought of you ! And I only thought about my- 
self — my watch! I never can forgive myself." 
She lets fall the watch from her heedless grasp, 
and he mechanically puts out the hand which he 
has been keeping behind him ; she impetuously 
seizes it in her own and, suddenly shrinking, he 
subdues the groan that breaks from him to a sort 
of gasp and totters to the log where Leslie has 
been sitting. 

Lilly : " Oh, see, Miss Bellingham ; they 've 
broken his wrist ! " 

Blake, panting : " It 's nothing ; don't — don't — '* 

Maggie : " Oh dear, he 's going to faint ! What 
shall we do if he does ? I did n't know they ever 
fainted ! " She wrings her hands in despair, while 
Leslie flings herself upon her knees at Blake's side. 



«/w Fayre Forest:' 63 

'* Ought n't we to support him, somehow? Oh 
yes do let 's support him, all of us ! " 

Leslie^ imperiously : " Run down to the river as 
fast as ever you can, and wet your handkerchiefs 
to sprinkle his face with." She passes her arm 
round Blake's, and tenderly gathers his broken 
wrist into her right hand. " One can support him.'* 



III. 

A SLIGHT MISUNDERSTANDING. 



1. 

Mrs. Murray and Mrs. Bellingham. 

Three weeks after the events last represented 
Mrs. Bellingham and her sister-in-law are once 
more seated in the hotel parlor, both with sewing, 
to which the latter abandons herself with an ap- 
parently exasperated energy, while the former lets 
her work lie in her lap, and listens with some lady- 
like trepidation to what Mrs. Murray is saying. 

Mrs. Murray : " From beginning to end it has 
been quite like a sensation play. Leslie must feel 
herself a heroine of melodrama. She is sojourn- 
ing at a country inn, and she goes sketching in the 
woods, when two ruffians set upon her and try to 
rob her. Her screams reach the ear of the young 
man of humble life but noble heart, who professed 
to have gone away but who was still opportunely 
hanging about; he rushes on the scene and dis- 



68 Out of the Question, 

perses the brigands, from whom he rends their 
prey. She seizes his hand to thank him for his 
Bubhme behavior, and discovers that his wrist has 
been broken by a blow from the bludgeon of one 
of the wicked ruf&ans. Very pretty, very charm- 
ing, indeed ; and so appropriate for a girl of Les- 
lie's training, family, and station in life. Upon my 
word I congratulate you, Marion. To think of 
being the mother of a heroine ! It was fortunate 
that you let her snub Mr. Dudley. If she had 
married him probably nothing of this kind would 
have happened." 

Mrs. BelUnghaniy uneasily : " I ought to be glad 
the affair amuses you, but I don't see how even you 
can hold the child responsible for what has hap- 
pened." 

Mrs. Murray : " Responsible ! I should be the 
last to do that, I hope. No, indeed. I consider 
her the victim of circumstances, and since the hero 
has been thrown back upon our hands, I 'in sure 
every one must say that her devotion is most ex- 
emplary. I don't hold her responsible for that, 
«ven." As Mrs. Murray continues, Mrs. Belling- 



A Slight Misunderstanding. 69 

ham's uneasiness increases, and she drops her hands 
with a baffled look' upon the work in her lap. 
"It's quite en regie that she should be anxious 
about him ; it would be altogether out of character 
otherwise. It 's a pity that he does n't lend himself 
more gracefully to being petted. When I saw her 
bringing him a pillow, that first day, after the doc- 
tor set his wrist and she had got him to repose his 
exhausted frame on the sofa, I was almost melted 
to tears. Of course it can end only in one way." 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Kate, I will not have any 
more of this. It 's intolerable, and you have no 
right to torment me so. You know that I 'm as 
much vexed as you can be. It annoys me beyond 
endurance, but I don't see what, as a lady, I can 
do about it. Mr. Blake is here again by no fault 
of his own, certainly, and neither Leslie nor I can 
treat him with indifference." 

Mrs. Murray : " I don't object to your treating 
him as kindly as you like, but you had better leave 
as little kindness as possible to Leslie. You must 
sooner or later recognize one thing, Marion, and 
take your measures accordingly. I advise you lo 
do it sooner.'* 



70 Out of the Question. 

Mrs. Bellingham : " What do you mean ? *' 

Mrs. Murray: "I mean what you know well 
enougli : that Leslie is interested in this Mr. Blake. 
I saw that she was, from the very first moment. 
He 's just the kind of man to fascinate a girl like 
Leslie ; you know that. He 's handsome, and he 's 
shown himself brave ; and all that unconvention- 
ality which marks him of a different class gives 
him a charm to a girl's fancy, even when she has 
recognized, herself, that he is n't a gentleman. 
She soon forgets that, and sees merely that he is 
clever and good. She would very promptly teach 
a girl of his traditions her place, but a young man 
is different." 

Mrs. Bellingham: "I hope Leslie would treat 
even a woman with consideration." 

3Trs. Murray : " Oh, consideration, consideration ! 
You may thank yourself, Marion, and your impos- 
sible ideas, if this comes to the worst. You be- 
long to one order of things or you belong to an- 
other. If you believe that several generations of 
wealth, breeding, and station distinguish a girl so 
that a new man, however good or wise he is, can 



A Slight Misunderstanding. 71 

never be her equal, you must act on your belief, 
and in a case like this you can't act too promptly." 

Mrs. Bellingham : " What should you do ? " 

Mrs. Murray : " Do ? I should fling away all 
absurd ideas of consideration, to begin with. I 
should deal frankly with Leslie ; I should appeal 
to her pride and her common sense ; and I should 
speak so distinctly to this young man that he 
couldn't possibly mistake my meaning. I should 
(tell him — I should advise him to try change of 
air for his wound ; or whatever it is." 

Mrs. Bellingham, after a moment's dreary reflec- 
tion: "That's quite impossible, Kate. I will 
speak to Leslie, but I can never offer offense to 
any one we owe so much." 

Mrs. Murray : " Do you wish me to speak to 
him?" 

Mrs. Bellingham : " No, I can't permit that, 
either." 

Mrs. Murray : " Very well ; then you must 
abide by the result." Mrs. Murray clutches her 
work together, stooping to recover dropping spools 
^nd scissors with an activity surprising in a lady of 



72 Out of the Question. 

her massive person, and is about to leave the room, 
when the sound of steps and voices arrest her ; a 
moment after Miss Bellingham and Blake, with his 
right arm in a sling, enter the room, so intent 
upon each other as not to observe the ladies in the 
comer. 



n. 

Leslie and Blake ; Mrs. Murray and Mrs. 
Bellingham apart. 

Leslie : " I 'm afraid you 've let me tire you. 
I 'm such an insatiable walker, and I never thought 
of your not being perfectly strong, yet." 

Blake, laughing : " Why, Miss Bellingham, it 
is n't one of my ankles that 's broken." 

Leslie, concessively : " No ; but if you 'd only 
let me do something for you. I can both play and 
sing, and really not at all badly. Shall I play to 
you ? " She goes up and strikes some chords on 
the piano, and with her hand on the keys glances 
with mock gravity round at Blake, who remains 
undecided. She turns about. *^' Perhaps you'd 
rather have me read to you ? " 

Blahe : " Do you really wish me to choose ? " 

Leslie : " I do. And ask something dijElicult and 
disagreeable." 



74 Out of the Question. 

Blake : " I 'd rather have you talk to me than 
either." 

Leslie : " Is that your idea of something difficult 
and disagreeable ? " 

Make : I hope you won't find it so/* 

Leslie: "But I shan't feel that it's anything, 
then ! Shall I begin to talk to you here ? Or 
where ? " 

Blake : " This is a good place, but if I 'm to 
choose again, I should say the gallery would be 
better." 

Leslie : " Oh, you 're choosing that because I 
said I wondered how people could come into the 
country and sit all their time in stuffy rooms ! " 

Blake, going to the window and looking out: 
" There are no seats." He returns, and putting 
the backs of two chairs together, lifts them with 
his left hand to carry them to the gallery. 

Leslie, advancing tragically upon him and re- 
proachfully possessing herself of the chairs : 
*' Never ! Do you think I have no sense of 
shame ? " She lifts a chair in either hand and 
oarries them out, while Blake in a charmed embar- 



A Slight Misunderstanding. 75 

rassment follows her, and they are heard speaking 
without : " There ! Or no ! That 's in a draught. 
You mustn't sit in a draught." 

Blake : " It won't hurt me. I 'm not a young 
lady." 

Leslie : " That 's the very reason it will hurt 
you. If you were a young lady you could stand 
anything. Anything you liked." There are in- 
distinct murmurs of further feigned dispute, broken 
by more or less conscious laughter, to which Mrs. 
Bellingham listens with alarm and Mrs. Murray 
with the self-righteousness of those who have told 
you so, and who, having thus washed their hands of 
an aifair, propose to give you a shower-bath of the 
water. 

Mrs. Murray : " Well, Marion ? " 

Mrs. Bellingham, rising, with a heavy sigh : 
" Yes, it 's quite as bad as you could wish." 

Mrs. Murray: "As bad as /could wish? Thij 
is too much, Marion. What are you going tG 
do ? " Mrs. Bellingham is gathering up her work 
IS if to quit the room, and Mrs. Murray's demand 
is pitched in a tone ^of falling indignation and ris- 
ing amazement. 



76 Out of the Question. 

Mrs. Bellingham : " We can't remain to over- 
hear their talk. I am going to my room." 

Mrs. Murray : " Why, Marion, the child is your 
own daughter ! " 

Mrs. Bellingham : " That is the very rieason why 
I don't wish to feel that she . has cause to be 
ashamed of me ; and I certainly should if I stayed 
to eavesdrop." 

Mrs. Murray : " How in the world should she 
ever know it ? " 

Mrs. Bellingham: "I should tell her. But that 
is n't the point, quite." 

Mrs. Murray : " This is fantastic ! Well, let her 
marry her — Caliban ! Why don't you go out and 
join them ? That need n't give her cause to blush 
for you. Remember, Marion, that Leslie is an 
ignorant, inexperienced child, and that it 's your 
duty to save her from her silliness." 

Mrs. Bellingham : " My daughter is a lady, and 
will remember herself." 

Mrs. 3furray : " But she 's a woman, Marion, 
and will forget herself ! " 

M7'S. Bellingham, who hesitates in a brief per- 



. A Slight Misunderstanding. 77 

plexity, but abruptly finishes her preparations for 
going out : " At any rate, I can't dog her steps, nor 
play the spy upon her. I wish to know only what 
she will freely tell me." 

Mrs. Murray: "And are you actually going? 
Well, Marion, I suppose I must n't say what I 
think of you." 

Mrs. Bellingham : " It is n't necessary that you 
should." 

Mrs. Murray : " If I were to speak, I should say 
that your logic was worthy of Bedlam, and your 
morality of— of — the millenium!" She whirls 
furiously out of the parlor, and Mrs. Bellingham, 
with a lingering glance at the door opening upon 
the balcony, follows her amply eddying skirts. A 
moment after their disappearance, Leslie comes to 
the gallery door and looks exploringly into the 
parlor. 



m 

Leslie and Blake ; finally^ Mks. Bellingham. 

Leslie^ speaking to Blake without : " I was sure 
T heard voices. But there 's nobody." She turns, 
and glancing at the hills which show their irregular 
mass through the open window, sinks down into a 
chair beside the low gallery rail. " Ah, this is a 
better point still," and as Blake appears with his 
chair and plants it vis-a-vis with her : " Why old 
Ponkwasset, I wonder ? But people always say 
old of mountains : old Wachusett, old Agamenticus, 
old Monadnock, old Ponkwasset. Perhaps the 
young mountains have gone West and settled down 
on the prairies, with all the other young people 
of the neighborhood. Would n't that explain it ? " 
She looks with openly-feigned seriousness at Blake, 
who supports in his left hand the elbow of his hurt 
a-'m. " I 'm sure it 's paining you." 



A Slight Misunderstanavny. 79 

Blahe : " No, no ; not the least. The fact is " 
— he laughs lightly — " I 'm afraid I was n't think- 
ing about the mountains just now, when you spoke." 

Leslie : " Oh, well, neither was I — very much." 
They both laugh. " But why do you put your 
hand under your arm, if it does n't pain you ? " 

Blahe ; " Oh ! — I happened to think of the 
scamp who broke it for me." 

Leslie, shuddering : " Don't speak of it ! Or yes, 
do ! Tell me about it ; I 've wanted to ask you. I 
ought to know about it ; I hoped you would tell 
without asking. I can never be thankful enough 
that your walk happened to bring you back the 
same way. Why must you leave me to imagine 
all the rest ? " 

Blake : Oh, those things are better imagined than 
described. Miss Bellingham." 

Leslie : " But I want it described. I must hear 
it, no matter how terrible it is." 

Blake : " It was n't terrible ; there was very 
little of it, one way or the other. The big fellow 
would n't give up your watch ; and I had to — r 
arge him ; and the little Irishman came dancing 



80 Out of the Question. 

up, and made a pass at us with his stick, and my 
wrist caught it. That 's all." 

Leslie, with effusion : " All ? You risked your 
life to get me back my watch, and I asked about 
that first, and never mentioned you." 

Blake : " I had n't done anything worth men- 
tioning." 

Leslie : " Then getting my watch was n't worth 
mentioning ! " 

Blahe : " Where is it ? I have n't seen you wear 
it." 

Leslie : " I broke something in it when I threw 
it down. It does n't go. Besides, I thought per- 
haps you would n't like to see it." 

Make : " Oh, yes, I should." 

Leslie, starting up : "I '11 go get it." 

Blake : " Not now ! " They are both silent. 
Leslie falters and then sits down again, and folds 
one hand over the other on the balcony rail, letting 
her fan dangle idly by its chain from her waist. 
He leans forward a little, and taking the fan, opens 
and shuts it, while she looks down upon him with 
a slight smile ; he relinquishes it with a glance at 
ber, and leans back again in his chair. 



A Slight Misunderstanding. 81 

Leslie: "Well, what were you thinking about 
that hideous little wretch who hurt you ? " 

Blake : " Why, I was thinking, for one thing, 
that he did n't mean to do it." 

Leslie : " Oh! Why did he do it, then ? " 

Blake : " I believe he meant to hit his partner, 
though I can 't exactly say why. It went through 
my mind. And I was thinking that a good deal 
might be said for tramps." 

Leslie : " For tramps that steal watches and 
break wrists? My philanthropy doesn't rise to 
those giddy heights, quite. No decidedly, Mr. 
Blake, I draw the line at tramps. They never 
look clean, and why don't they go to work ? " 

Blake : " Well they could n't find work just now, 
if they wanted it, and generally I suppose they 
don't want it. A man who 's been out of work 
three months is glad to get it, but if he 's idle a 
year he does n't want it. When I see one of your 
big cotton mills standing idle, I know that it means 
just so much tramping, so much starving and steal- 
ing, so much misery and murder. We 're all part 
6 



82 Out of the Question. 

of the tangle ; we 're all of us to blame, we 're none 
of us to blame." 

Leslie : " Oh, that 's very well. But if you pity 
such wretches, what becomes of the deserving 
poor ? " 

Blake : " I 'm not sure there are any deserving 
poor, as you call them, any more than there are de- 
serving rich. So I don't draw the line at tramps. 
The fact is, Miss Bellingham, I had just been doing 
those fellows a charity before they attacked you, — 
given them some tobacco. You don't approve of 
that ? " 

Leslie : " Oh, I like smoking ! " 

Blake, laughing: "And I got their idea of a 
gentleman." 

Leslie, after a moment : "Yes ? What was that? " 

Blake : " A man who gives you tobacco, and 
does n't ask you why you don't go to work. A 
real gentleman has matches about him to light your 
pipe with afterwards. Is that your notion of a 
gentleman ? " 

Leslie, consciously : " I don't know ; not exactly." 

Blake . " It made me think of the notion of a 



A Slight Misunderstanding. 83 

gentleman I once heard from a very nice fellow 
years ago : he believed that you could n't be a gen- 
tleman unless you began with your grandfather. I 
was younger then, and I remember shivering over 
it, for it left me quite out in the cold, though I 
could n't help liking the man ; he was a gentleman 
in spite of what he said, — a splendid fellow, if 
you made allowance fop him. You have to make 
allowances for everybody, especially for men who 
have had all the advantages. It 's apt to put them 
wrong for life ; they get to thinking that the start 
is the race. I used to look down on that sort of 
men, once — in theory. But what I saw of them 
in the war taught me better ; they only wanted an 
emergency, and they could show themselves as 
good as anybody. It is n't safe to judge people by 
their circumstances ; besides, I 've known too many 
men who had all the (i'wadvantage and never came 
to anything. Still I prefer the tramp's idea — per- 
haps because it 's more flattering — that you are a 
gentleman if you choose to be so. What do you 
think ? " 

Leslie : " I don't know." After an interval long 



84 Out of the Question. 

enough to vanquish and banish a disagreeable con- 
sciousness : " I think it 's a very unpleasant sub- 
ject. Why don't you talk of something else ? " 

Blake : " Oh, I was n't to talk at all, as I under- 
stood. I was to be talked to." 

Leslie : " Well, what shall I talk to you about ? 
You must choose that, too." 

Blake : " Let us talk about yourself, then.'* 

Leslie : " There is nothing about me. I 'm just 
like every other girl. Glet Miss Wallace to tell 
you about herself, some day, and then you '11 know 
my whole history. I 've done everything that 
she 's done. We had the same dancing, singing, 
piano, French, German, and Italian lessons ; we 
went to the same schools and the same lectures ; 
we have both been abroad, and can sketch, and 
paint on tiles. We 're as nearly alike as the same 
experiences and associations could make us, and 
we 're just like all the other girls we know. Is n't 
it rather monotonous ? " 

Blake : " I don't know all the other girls that 
you know. If I can judge from Miss Wallace, I 
don't believe you 're like them ; but they may be 
like you." 



A Slight Misunderstanding. 85 

Leslie, laughing : " That 's too fine a distinction 
for me. And you have n't answered my question." 

Blake, gravely : " No, it is n't monotonous to 
me ; it 's all very good, I think. I 'm rather old- 
fashioned about women ; I like everything in their 
lives to be regular and ordered by old usage." 

Leslie : " Then you don't approve of origi- 
nality ? " 

Blahe: ".I don't like eccentricity." 

Leslie : " Oh, I do. I should like to do all sorts 
of odd things, if I dared." 

Blake : " Well, your not daring is a great point. 
If I had a sister, I should want her to be like all 
the other girls that are like you." 

Leslie : " You compliment ! She could n't be 
like me." 

Blalce: "Why?" 

Leslie: " Why ? Oh, I don't know." She hes 
itates, and then with a quick glance at him : " She 
would have dark eyes and hair, for one thing." 
They both laugh. 

Blake : " Was that what you meant to say ? " 

Leslie : " Is n't it enough to say what you mean, 
without being obliged to say what you meant ? " 



86 Out of the Question. 

Blake : " Half a loaf is better than no bread ; 
beo:orars must n't be choosers." 

Leslie : " Oh, if you put it so meekly as that you 
humiliate me. I must tell you now: I meant a 
question." 

Blahe : " What is it ? " 

Leslie : " But I can't ask it, yet. Not till I 've 
got rid of some part of my obligations." 

Blake : " I suppose you mean what I — what 
happened." 

Leslie: "Yes." 

Blake: "I'm sorry that it happened, then; and 
I had been feeling rather glad of it, on the whole. 
I shall hate it if it 's an annoyance to you." 

Leslie: "Oh, — not annoyance, exactly." 

Blake : " What then ? Should you like a receipt 
in full for all gratitude due me ? " 

Leslie : " I should like to feel that we Had done 
something for you in return." 

Blake : " You can cancel it all by giving me 
leave to enjoy being just what and where I am." 

Leslie, demurely, after a little pause : "Is a 
broken wrist such a pleasure, then ? " 



A Slight Misunderstanding. 87 

JBlake: "I take the broken wrist for what it 
brings. If it were not for that I should be in New 
York breaking my heart over some people I 'm 
connected with in business there, and wondering 
how to push a little invention of mine without their 
help. Instead of that " — 

Leslie, hastily : " Oh ! Invention ? Are you an 
inventor, too, Mr. Blake ? Do tell me what it is.*' 

Blake : " It 's an improved locomotive driving- 
wheel. But you 'd better let me alone about that, 
Miss Bellingham ; I never stop when I get on my 
driving-wheel. That 's what makes my friends 
doubtful about it ; they don't see how any brake 
can check it. They say the Westinghouse air- 
brake would exhaust the atmosphere of the planet 
on it without the slightest effect. You see I am 
rather sanguine about it." He laughs nervously. 

Leslie : " But what have those New York people 
to do with it ? " 

Blake : " Nothing, at present. That 's the worst 
of it. They were partners of mine, and they got 
me to come on all the way from Omaha, and then 
I found out that they had no means to get the 
*.hing going." 



88 Out of the Question. 

Leslie : " Oh ! How could they do it ? " 

Blake : " Well, I used language to that effect 
myself, but they did n't seem to know ; and I ran 
up here to cool off and think the matter over for a 
fresh start. You see, if I succeed it will be an 
everlasting fortune to me ; and if I fail, — well, it 
will be an everlasting misfortune. But I 'm not 
going to fail. There ; I 'm started ! If I went on 
a moment longer, no power on earth could stop me. 
I suppose your 're not much used to talking about 
driving-wheels, Miss Bellingham ? " 

Leslie : " We don't often speak of them. But 
they must be very interesting to those that under- 
stand them." 

Blake : " I can't honestly say they are. They 're 
like railroads ; they 're good to get you there." 

Leslie: "Where?" 

Blake : " Well, in my case, away from a good 
deal of drudgery I don't like, and a life I don't al- 
together fancy, and a kind of world I know too 
well. I should go to Europe, I suppose, if the 
wheel succeeded. I 've a curiosity to see what the 
apple is like on the other side ; whether it 's riper 



A Slight Misunderstanding. 89 

or only rottener. And I always believed I should 
quiet down somewhere, and read all the books I 
wanted to, and make up for lost time in several 
ways. I don't think I should look at any sort of 
machine for a year." 

Leslie, earnestly : " And would all that happen 
if you had the money to get the driving-wheel 
going ? " 

Make, with a smile at her earnestness : " I 'm not 
such a driving-wheel fanatic as that. The thing 
has to be fully tested, and even after it's tested, 
the roads may refuse to take hold of it." 

Leslie, confidently: "They can't — when they 
see that it 's better." 

Blake : " I wish I could think so. But roads are 
human, Miss Bellingham. They prefer a thing 
that 's just as well to something that 's much bet- 
ter — if it costs much to change." 

Leslie : " Well, then, if you don't believe the 
roads will take hold of it, why do you want to 
test it? Why don't you give it up at once?" 

Blake : " It won't give me up. I do believe in 
' t, you know, and I can't stop where I am with it 
T must go on." 



90 Out of the Question. 

Leslie : " Yes. I should do just the same. I 
should never, never give it up. I know you '11 be 
helped. Mr. Blake, if this wheel " — 

Blake : " Really, Miss Bellingham, I feel 
ashamed for letting you bother yourself so long 
with that ridiculous wheel. But you wouldn't 
stick to the subject : we were talking about you." 

Leslie^ dreamily : " About me ? " Then ab- 
ruptly : " Mamma will wonder what in the world 
has become of me." She rises, and Blake, with an 
air of slight surprise, follows her example. She 
leads the way into the parlor, and lingeringly draw- 
ing near the piano, she strikes some chords, and 
as she stands over the instrument, she carelessly 
plays an air with one hand. Then, without look- 
ing up : " Was that the air you were trying to re- 
member ? " 

Make, joyfully : " Oh yes, that 's it ; that 's it, at 
last!" 

Leslie, seating herself at the piano and running 
over the keys again : " I think I can play it for 
you ; it 's rather old-fashioned, now." She plays 
and sings, and then rests with her hands on the 



A Slight Misunderstanding. 91 

keys, looking up at Blake where he stands leaning 
one elbow on the corner of the piano. 

Blake : " I 'm very much obliged." 

Leslie, laughing : " And I 'm very much sur- 
prised." 

BlaJce : « Why ? " 

Leslie : " I should think the inventor of a driv- 
ing-wheel would want something a great deal more 
stirring than this German sentimentality and those 
languid, melancholy things from Tennyson that 
you liked." 

Blake: "Ah, that's just what I don't want. 
I 've got stir enough of my own." 

Leslie : " I wish I could understand you." 

Blake: "Am I such a puzzle? I always 
thought myself a very simple affair." 

Leslie : " That 's the difficulty. 1 wish " — 

Blake: "What?" 

Leslie : " That I could say something wrong in 
just the right way ! " 

Blake, laughing: "How do you know it's 
vrrong ? " 

Leslie: "It isn't, if you don't think so.'* 



92 Out of the Question. 

Blake: " I don't, so far." 

Leslie : " Ah, don't joke. It 's a very serious 
matter." 

Blake : " Why should I think it was wrong ? " 

Leslie : " I don't know that you will. Mr. 
Blake" — 

Blake : « Well ? " 

Leslie : " Did you know — If I begin to say 
something, and feel like stopping before I 've said 
it, you won't ask questions to make me go on ? " 
Very seriously. 

Blake, with a smile of joyous amusement, look- 
ing down at her as he lounges at the corner of the 
piano : " I won't even ask you to begin." Leslie 
passes her hand over the edges of the keys, with- 
out making them sound ; then she drops it into her 
lap and there clasps it with the other hand, and 
looks up at Blake. 

Leslie : " Did you know I was rich, Mr. 
Blake?" 

Blake : " No, Miss Bellingham, I did n't." His 
smile changes from amusement to surprise, and he 
colors faintly. 



A Slight Misunderstanding. 93 

Leslie, blushing violently : " Well, I am, — if 
being rich is having a great deal more money to do 
what you please than you know what to do with." 
Blake listens with a look of deepening mystifica- 
tion ; she hurries desperately on : "I have this 
money in my own right ; it 's what my uncle lefib 
m(3, and I can give it all away if I choose." She 
pauses again, as if waiting for Blake to ask her to 
go on, but he remains loyally silent ; his smile has 
died away, and an embarrassment increases upon 
both of them. She looks up at him again, and im- 
plores : " What will you think of what I 'm going 
to say ? " 

Blake, breaking into a troubled laugh : " I can't 
imagine what you 're going to say." 

Leslie : " Don't laugh ! I know you won't — 
O Mr. Blake, you said you liked girls to be just 
like everybody else, and old-established, and that ; 
and I know this is as eccentric as it can be. It 
is n't at all the thing, I know, for a young lady to 
say to a gentleman ; but you 're not like the others, 
and — Oh, it does n't seem possible that I should 
have begun it ! It seems perfectly monstrous ! 



94 Out of the Question. 

But I know you won't misinterpret ; I must, I 
must go on, and the bluntest and straightforward- 
est way will be the best way." She keeps wist- 
fully scanning Blake's face as she speaks, but ap- 
parently gathers no courage or comfort from it. 
" Mr. Blake ! " 

Blahe, passively : " Well ? " 

Leslie^ with desperate vehemence : " I want — 
Oh, what will you think of me ! But no, you 're 
too good yourself not to see it in just the right 
way. I 'm sure that you won't think it — unlady- 
like — for me to propose such a thing, merely be- 
cause — because most people wouldn't do it; but 
I shall respect your reasons — I shall know you 're 
right — even if you refuse me ; and — O Mr. 
Blake, I want to go into partnership with you ! " 

Blake, recoiling a pace or two from the corner of 
the piano, as Leslie rises from the stool and stands 
confronting him ; " To — to — go into " — 

Leslie : " Yes, yes ! But how dreadfully you 
take it ; and you promised — Oh, I knew you 
would n't like it ! I know it seems dreadfully 
queer, and not at all delicate. But I thought — 1 



A Slight Misunderstanding. 95 

thought — from what you said — You said those 
people had no money to push your invention, and 
here I have all this money doing nobody any good 
— and you 've done nothing but heap one kindness 
after another on us — and why shouldn't you take 
it, as much as you want, and use it to perfect your 
driving-wheel ? I 'm sure I believe in it ; and " — 
She has followed him the pace or two of his with- 
drawal ; but now, at some changing expression of 
his face, she hesitates, falters, and remains silent 
and motionless, as if fixed and stricken mute 
by the sight of some hideous apparition. Then 
with a wild incredulity: "Oh!" and indignation. 
" Oh ! " and passionate reproach and disappoint- 
ment, " Oh ! How cruel, how shameless, how hor- 
rid ! " She drops her face into her hands, and 
sinks upon the piano-stool, throwing her burdened 
arms upon the keys with a melodious crash. 

Blake : " Don't, don't ! For pity's sake, don't, 
my — Miss Bellingham ! " He stands over her in 
helpless misery and abject self-reproach. " Good 
heavens, I did n't — It was all " — 

Leslie, springing erect : *' Don't speak to me. 



96 Out of the Question. 

Your presence, your being alive in tlie same world 
after that is an insufferable insult ! For you to 
dare ! All ! No woman could say what you 
thought. No lady " — 

Blake : " Wait ! " He turns pale, and speaks 
low and steadily : " You must listen to me now ; 
you must hear what I never dreamt I should dare 
to say. I loved you ! If that had not bewildered 
me I could not have thought — what was impossi- 
ble. It was a delusion dearer than life ; but I was 
ashamed of the hope it gave me even while it 
lasted. Don't mistake me, Bliss Belliiigham ; I 
could have died to win your love, but if your words 
had said what they seemed to say, I would not 
have taken what they seemed to offer. But that's 
past. And now that I have to answer your mean- 
ing, I must do it without thanks. You place me 
in the position of having told my story to hint for 
your help " — 

Leslie, in vehement protest : " Oh, no, no, no ! 
I never dreamt of such a thing 1 I couldn't !" 

Blake : " Thank you at least for that ; and — 
Good-by ! " He bows and moves away toward the 
door. 



A Slight Misunderstanding, 97 

Leslie, wildly : " Oh, don't go, don't go ! What 
have I done, what shall I do ?" 

Blake, pausing, and then going abruptly back to 
her : " You can forgive me. Miss Bellingham ; and 
let everything be as '\\. was." 

Leslie, after a moment of silent anguish : " No, 
no. That 's impossible. It can never be the same 
again. It must all end. I can forgive you easily 
enough ; it was nothing ; the wrong was all mine. 
I 've been cruelly to blame, letting you — go on. 
Oh, yes, very, very much. But I did n't know it ; 
and I did n't mean anything by anything. No, I 
could n't. Good-by. _You are right to go. You 
mustn't see me any more. I shall never forget 
your goodness and patience." Eagerly : " You 
would n't want me to forget it, would you ? " 

Blake, brokenly : " Whatever you do will be 
right. God bless you, and good-by." He takes 
up her right hand in his left, and raises it to his 
lips, she trembling, and as he stands holding it 
Mrs. Bellingham enters with an open letter. 

Mrs. Bellingham: "Leslie" — 

Leslie, who withdraws her hand, and after a mo- 



98 Out of the Question. 

mentary suspense turns unashamed to her mother : 
" Mr. Blake is going away, mamma " — Mrs. 
Bellingham faintly acknowledges his parting bow. 
lieslie watches him go, and then turns away with 
a suppressed sob. 



IV. 

MRS. MURRAY'S TRIUMPH, 



i. 

Mrs. Bellingham and Leslie. 

Leslie : *■ "Well, mamma, what will you say to me 
now?" Without the inspiration of Blake's pres- 
ence, she stands drearily confronting her mother in 
Mrs. Bellingham's own room, where the latter, 
seated in her easy-chair, looks up into Leslie's face. 

Mrs. Beliingham : " Nothing, Leslie. I am wait- 
ing for you to speak." 

Leslie : " Oh, I can't speak unless you ask me." 
She drops into a chair, and hiding her face in her 
handkerchief weeps silently. Her mother waits 
till her passion is spent and she has wiped her 
tears, and sits mutely staring toward the window. 

Mrs. Beliingham : " Is he coming back again, 
Leslie?" 

Leslie: "No." 

Mrs. Beliingham : " Was it necessary that you 
should let him take leave of you in that way ? " 



102 Out of the Question. 

Leslie, sighing : " No, it was n't necessary. But 
— it was inevitable." 

Mrs. BeUingham : " What had made it inev- 
itable ? Remember, Leslie, that you asked me 
to question you." 

Leslie : " I know it, mamma." 

Mrs. BeUingham : " And you need n't answer if 
you don't like." 

Leslie: "I don't like, but I will answer, all the 
same, for you have a right to know. I had been 
saying something silly to him." 

Mrs. BeUingham, with patient hopelessness : 
« Yes ? " 

Leslie : " It seems so, now ; but I know that I 
spoke from a right motive, — a motive that you 
would n't disapprove of yourself, mamma." 

Mrs. BeUingham : " I 'm sure of that, my dear." 

Leslie : " Well, you see — Could n't you go on 
and ask me, mamma ? " 

Mrs. BeUingham : " I don't know what to ask, 
Leslie." 

Leslie : " It 's so hard to tell, without ! " Des- 
perately : " Why, you see, mamma, Mr. Blake had 



Mrs, Murray's Triumph. 103 

told me about a thing he had been inventing, and 
how some people in New York had promised him 
money to get it along, — push it, he said, — and 
when he came on all the way from Omaha, he 
found that they had no money ; and so — and so — 
I — I offered him some." 

Mts. BelUngham : " Oh, Leslie ! " 

Leslie : " Yes, yes, it seems horrid, now, — per- 
fectly hideous. But I did so long to do" something 
for him because he had done so much for us, and I 
think he is so modest and noble, and I felt so sorry 
that he should have been so cruelly deceived. 
Was n't that a good motive, mamma ? " 

Mrs. BelUngham : " Oh, yes, my poor headlong 
child ! But what a thing for a young lady to pro- 
pose ! I can't imagine how you could approach the 
matter." 

Leslie : " That 's the worst of it, — the very 
worst. Of course, I never could have approached 
such a thing with any other young man ; but I 
thought there was such a difference between us, 
don't you know, in everything, that it would be 
safe ; and I thought it would be better — he would 



104 Out of the Question. 

like it better — if there was no beating about the 
bush ; and so I said — I said — that I wanted to go 
into partnership with him." 

Mrs. Bellingham, with great trouble in her voice, 
but steadily : " What answer did he make you, 
Leslie?" 

Leslie : " Oh, I was justly punished for looking 
down upon him. At first he blushed in a strange 
sort of way, and then he turned pale and looked 
grieved and angry, and at last repeated my words 
in a kind of daze, and I blundered on, and all at 
once — I saw what he thought I had meant ; he 
thought — Oh dear, dear, — he thought " — she 
hides her face again, and sobs out the words be- 
hind her handkerchief — " that I w-w-anted to — 
to — to marry him ! Oh, how shall I ever en- 
dure it ? It was a thousand times worse than the 
tramps, — a thousand times.". Mrs. Bellingham 
remains silently regarding her daughter, who con- 
tinues to bemoan herself, and then lifts her tear- 
stained face : " Don't you think it was ungrate- 
fully, horridly, cruelly vulgar ? " 

Mrs. Bellingham: ' Mr. Blake can't have the 



Mrs. Murray's Triumph. 105 

refinement of feeling that you 've been used to in 
the gentlemen of your acquaintance ; I 'm glad that 
you 've found that out for yourself, though you 've 
had to reach it throuo;h such a bitter mortifica- 
,tion. If such a man misunderstood you" — 

Leslie, indignantly : " Mr. Blake is quite as good 
as the gentlemen of my acquaintance, mamma ; he 
could n't help thinking what he did, I blundered 
so, and when I flew out at him, and upbraided 
him for his — ungenerosity, and hurt his feelings 
all I could, he excused himself in a perfectly satis- 
factory way. He said " — 

Mrs. Bellinghayn : " What, Leslie ? " 
Leslie, with a drooping head : " He said — he 
used words more refined and considerate than I 
ever dreamt of — he said he was always thinking 
of me in that way without knowing it, and hoping 
against hope, or he could never have misunderstood 
me in the world. And then he let me know that 
he would n't have taken me, no matter how much 
he liked me, if what he thought for only an instant 
had been true ; and he could never have taken my 
monev, for that would have made him seem like 



106 Out of the Question. 

begging, by what he had told me. And he talked 
splendidly, mamma, and he put me down, as I de 
served, and he was going away, and I called him 
back, and we agreed that we must never see each 
other again ; and — and I could n't help his kiss- 
ing my hand." She puts up her handkerchief and 
sobs, and there is an interval before her mother 
speaks in a tone of compassion, yet of relief. 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Well, Leslie, I 'm glad that 
you could agree upon so wise a course. This has 
all been a terribly perplexing and painful affair ; 
and I have had my fears, my dear, that perhaps it 
had gone so far with you that " — 

Leslie, vehemently : " Why, so it had ! I did n't 
know I liked him so, but I do ; and I give him up 
— I gave him up — because you all hate him, yes, 
all ; and you shut your eyes, and won't see how 
kind and brave and good he is ; and I can't hold 
out against you. Yes, he must go ; but he takes 
my broken heart with him." 

Mrs. Bellingham, sternly: "Leslie, this is ab- 
surd. You know yourself that he 's out of th© 
question." 



Mrs. Murray's Triumph. 107 

Leslie, flinging herself down and laying her head 
in her mother's lap with a desolate cry : " 
mamma, mamma, don't speak so harshly to me, or 
I shall die. I know he 's out of the question ; yes, 
yes, I do. But how ? How, mamma ? How is he 
out of the question ? That 's what I can't under- 
stand ! " 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Why, to begin with, we 
know nothing about him, Leslie." 

Leslie, eagerly : " Oh yes, I do. He 's told me 
all about himself. He 's an inventor. He 's a 
genius. Yes, he knows everything, indeed he 
does ; and in the war he was an engineer. If you 
could only hear him talk as I do " — 

Mr'S. Bellingham : " I dare say. But even a civilr 
engineer " — 

Leslie : " A civil engineer ! I should hope not. 
I should be ashamed of a man who had been a 
civilian during the war. He always had this great 
taste for mechanics, and he studied the business of 
a machinist — I don't know what it is, exactly ; 
but he knows all about steam, and he can build a 
whole engine, himself; and he happened to be 



/08 Out of the Question. 

a private soldier going somewhere on a Missis- 
sippi gunboat when the engineer was killed, and 
he took charge of the engine at once, and was in 
the great battles with the boat afterwards. He 's 
a military engineer." 

Mrs. Bellingham : " He 's a steamboat engineer, 
Leslie." 

Leslie : " He was an officer of the boat — an 
officer " — 

3frs. Bellingham^ with a groan : " Oh, he was n't 
an officer of the sort you think ; he had no mili- 
tary rank ; he had the place of a clever artisan." 

Leslie : " I don't understand." 

Mrs. Bellingham : " He looked after the machin- 
ery, and saw that the boiler did n't burst, — I 
don't know what. But you might as well marry 
a locomotive-driver, as far as profession goes." 

Leslie, aghast : " Do you mean that when Mr. 
Blake was an engineer, he did n't wear any coat, 
and had his sleeves rolled up, and went about with 
a stringy wad of oily cotton in his hand ? " 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Yes." 

Leslie : " Oh ! " She excludes the horrible vision 
Tjy clasping both hands over her eyes. 



Mrs. Murray's Triumph. 109 

Mrs. Bellingham, very gravely : " Now listen to 
me, Leslie. You know tliat I am not like your 
aunt Kate, — that I never talk in that vulgar way 
about classes and stations, don't you?" 

Leslie, still in a helpless daze : " Oh, yes, 
mamma. I 've always been a great deal worse 
than you, myself." 

Mrs. BelUngham : " Well, my dear, then I hope 
that you will acquit me of anything low or snob- 
bish in what I have to say. There is a fitness in 
all things, and I speak out of respect to that. It is 
simply impossible that a girl of your breeding and 
ideas and associations should marry a man of his. 
Eecollect that no one belongs entirely to them- 
selves. You are part of the circle in which you 
have always moved, and he is part of the circum- 
stances of his life. Do you see ? " 

Leslie : " Yes." She lapses from a kneeling to 
a crouching posture, and resting one elbow on her 
mother's knee poises her chin on her hand, and 
listens drearily. 

Mrs. BelUngham : " We may say that it is no 
matter what a man has been ; that we are only 



110 Oat of the Question, 

concerned with what Mr. Blake is now. But 
the trouble is that every one of us is what they 
have been. If Mr. Blake's early associations have 
been rude and his business coarse, you may be 
sure they have left their mark upon him, no mat- 
ter how good he may be naturally. I think he is 
of a very high and sweet nature ; he seems so " — 

Leslie : " Oh, he is, he is ! " 

3Irs. Bellingham : " But he can't outlive his own 
life. Is n't that reasonable ? " 

Leslie, hopelessly : " Yes, it seems so." 

Mrs. Bellingham : " You can't. safely marry any 
man whose history you despise. Marriage is a ter- 
rible thing, my dear ; young girls can never under- 
stand how it searches out the heart and tries and 
tests in every way. You must n't have a husband 
whom you can imagine with a wad of greasy cot- 
ton in his hand. There will be wicked moments 
in which you will taunt and torment each other." 

Leslie : " mamma, mamma ! " 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Yes, it is so ! The truest 
love can come to that. And in those moments it 
18 better that all your past and present should be 



Mrs. Murray's Triumph. Ill 

of the same level as his ; for you would n't hesitate 
to throw any scorn in his teeth ; you would be mad, 
and you must not have deadly weapons within 
reach. I speak very plainly." 

Leslie: "Terribly!" 

Mrs. Bellingham : " But that is the worst. There 
are a thousand lighter trials, which you must meet 
Where would you live, if you married him ? You 
have a fortune, and you might go to Europe " — 

Leslie : " I never would sneak away to Europe 
with him ! " 

Mrs. Bellingham : " I should hope not. But if 
you remained at home, how would you introduce 
him to your friends? Invention is n't a profession ; 
would you tell them that he was a machinist or a 
steamboat engineer by trade ? And if they found 
it out without your telling ? " 

Leslie, evasively : " There are plenty of girls 
who marry men of genius, and it does n't matter 
what the men have done, — how humble they have 
been. If they 're geniuses " — 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Leslie, such men have 
won all the honors and distinctions before they 



112 Out of the Question. 

marry. Girls like you, my dear, don't marry gen- 
iuses in their poverty and obscurity. Those men 
spend years and years of toil and study, and strug- 
gle through a thousand difficulties and privations, 
and set the world talking about them, before they 
can even be asked to meet the ordinary people of 
our set in society. Wait till Mr. Blake has 
shown " — 

Leslie : " But he 'd be an old man by that time, 
and then I should n't want him. If I know now 
that he 's going to be great " — 

Mrs. Bellingham : " My dear, you know nothing 
whatever about him, except that his past life has 
been shabby and common." 

Leslie, with sudden spirit : " Well, then, mamma, 
at least I don't know anything horrid of him, as 
some girls must know of the young men they 
marry, — and the old men, too. Just think of Vi- 
olet Emmons's match with that count, there in 
Paris ! And Aggy Lawson's, with that dreadful 
old Mr. Lancaster, that everybody says has been 
so wicked ! I 'd rather marry Mr. Blake, a thou- 
sand times, if he had been a — I don't know 
what!" 



Mrs. Murray's Triumph. 113 

Mrs. Bellingham: "You have no right to take 
things at their worst, Leslie. E-emember all the 
girls you know, and the accomplished men they 
have married in their own set ; men who are quite 
their equals in goodness as well as station and 
wealth and breeding. That 's what I want you to 
do."' 

Leslie : " Do you wish me to marry somebody 
I don't like?" 

Mrs. Bellingham : "Be fair, Leslie. I merely 
wish you to like somebody you ought to marry, — 
when the proper time comes. How do you know 
that Mr. Blake is n't quite as bad as the count or 
Mr. Lancaster ? " 

Leslie, with a burst of tears : " Oh, mamma, you 
just now said yourself that you believed he was 
good and sweet, and you have seen the beautiful 
delicacy he behaves towards women with. Well, 
well," — she rises, and catches in her hand a long 
coil of her hair which has come loose from the 
mass, and stands holding it while she turns tragi- 
cally toward her mother, — " let it all go. I will 
never marry at all, and then at least I can't dis- 
8 



114 Out of the Question. 

please you. I give him up, and I hope it will 
make you happy, mamma." 

Mrs. Bellingham, rising : " Leslie, is this the 
way you reward my anxiety and patience ? I 
have reasoned with you as a woman of sense, and 
the return you make is to behave as a petulant 
child. I will never try to control you in such a 
matter as this, but you know now what I think, 
and you can have your own way if you like it 
better or believe it is wiser than mine. Oh, my 
poor child ! " — clasping Leslie's head between her 
hands and tenderly kissing the girl's hair, — "don't 
you suppose your mother's heart aches for you ? 
Marry him if you will, Leslie, and I shall always 
love you. I hope I may never have to pity you 
more than I do now. All that I ask of you, after 
all, is to make sure of yourself." 

Leslie : " I will, mamma, I will. He must go ; 
oh, yes, he must go ! I see that it would n't do. 
It would be too unequal, — I 'm so far beneath him 
in everything but the things I ought to despise. 
No, I 'm not his equal, and I never can be, and so 
I must not think of him any more. If he were 



Mrs. Murray's Triumph, 115 

ricli, and had been brouglit up like me, and 1 were 
Bome poor girl with nothing hut her love for him, 
he would never let the world outweigh her lo\e, as 
I do his. Don't praise me, mother ; don't thank 
me. It is n't for you I do it ; it is n't for anything 
worthy, or true, or good ; it 's because I 'm a cow- 
ard, and afraid of the opinions of people I despise. 
You 've shown me what I am. I thought I was 
brave and strong ; but I am weak and timid, and I 
shall never respect myself any more. Send him 
away ; tell him what an abject creature I am ! It 
will kill me to have him think meanly of me, but 
oh, it will be a thousand times better that he 
should have a right to scorn me now, than that I 
should ever come to despise myself for having 
been ashamed of him, when — when — That I 
could rCt bear ! " She drops into a chair near the 
table and lets fall her face into her hands upon it, 
sobbing. 

Mrs. Bellingham: "Leslie, Leslie! Be your- 
self ! How strangely you act ! " 

Leslie, lifting her face, to let it gleam a moment 
upon her mother before she drops it: " Oh, yes, I 



116 Out of the Question. 

feel very strangely. But now I won't distress you 
any more, mother," lifting her face again and im- 
petuously drying her eyes with her handkerchief ; 
" I will be firm, now, and no one shall ever hear a 
murmur from me, — not a murmur. I think that 's 
due to you, mamma ; you have been so patient 
with me. I 've no right to grieve you by going on 
in this silly way, and I won't. I will be firm, firm, 
firm ! " She casts herself into her mother's arms, 
and as she hangs upon her neck in a passion of 
grief, Mrs. Murray appears in the door-way, and in 
spite of Mrs. Bellingham's gesticulated entreaties 
to retire, advances into the room. 



n. 

Mrs. Murray, Mrs. Bellingham, anc? Leslie. 

Mrs. Murray : " Why, what in the world does 
all this mean?" 

Leslie, raising her head and turning fiercely 
upon her : " It means that I 'm now all you wish 
me to be, — quite your own ideal of ingratitude 
and selfishness, and I wish you joy of your suc- 
cess ! " She vanishes stormily from the room and 
leaves Mrs. Murray planted. 

Mrs. Murray : " Has she dismissed him ? Has 
she broken with him ? " 

Mrs. Bellingham, coldly: "I think she meant 
you to understand that." 

Mrs. Murray : " Very well, then, Charles can't 
come a moment too soon. If things are at this 
pass, and Leslie ' s in this mood, it 's the most dan- 
gerous moment of the whole affair. If she should 
meet him now, everything would be lost." 



118 Out of the Question, 

Ifrs. BelKngham : " Don't be troubled. She 
won't meet him ; he 's gone." 

Mrs. Murray: "I shall believe that when I see 
him going. A man like that would never leave her, 
in the world, because she bade him, — and I should 
think him a great fool if he did." 



V. 

BLAKE'S SAYING DOUBT. 



I. 

Leslie and Maggie. 

Leslie: "But it's all over, — it's all over. I 
shall live it down j but it will make another girl of 
me, Maggie." Along the road that winds near the 
nook where the encounter with the tramps took 
place, Leslie comes languidly pacing with her 
friend Maggie Wallace, who listens, as they walk, 
with downcast eyes and an air of reverent devo- 
tion, to Leslie's talk. Her voice trembles a little, 
and as they pause a moment Maggie draws Leslie's 
head down upon her neck, from which the latter 
presently lifts it fiercely. " I don't wish you to 
pity me, Maggie, for I don't deserve any pity. 
I 'm not suiFering an atom more than I ought. It 's 
all my own fault. Mamma really left me quite 
free, and if I cared more for what people would 
Bay and think and look than I did for him, I'm 



122 Out of the Question. 

rightfully punished, and I 'm not going to whimper 
about it. I 've thought it all out." 

Maggie : " Leslie, you always did think things 
out so clearly ! " 

Leslie: "And I hope that I shall get my reward, 
and be an example. I hope I shall never marry at 
all, or else some horrid old thing I detest ; it 
would serve me right and I should be glad of it ! " 

Maggie : " Oh no, no ! Don't talk in that way, 
Leslie. Do come back with me to the house and 
lie down, or I 'm sure you '11 be ill. You look per- 
fectly worn out." 

Leslie, drooping upon the fallen log where she 
had sat to sketch the birch forest: "Yes, I'm tired. 
I think I shall never be rested again. It 's the 
same place," — looking wistfully round, — " and 
yet how strange it seems. You know we used 
to come here, and sit on this log and talk. What 
long, long talks ! Oh me, it will never be again ! 
How weird those birches look ! Like ghosts. I 
wish I was one of them. Well, well ! It 's all 
over. Don't wait here, Maggie, dear. Go back 
to the house ; I will come soon ; you must n*t let 



Blaize s Saving Doubt. 123 

me keep you from Miss Roberts. Excuse me to 
her, and tell her I '11 go some other time. I can't, 
now. Go, Maggie ! " 

Maggie : " Leslie ; I hate to leave you here ! 
After what 's happened, it seems such a dreadful 
place." 

Leslie : " After what 's happened, it 's a sacred 
place, — the dearest place in the world to me. 
Come, Maggie, you must n't break your appoint- 
ment. It was very good of you to come with me 
at all, and now you inust go. Say that you left me 
behind a little way ; that I '11 be there directly." 

Maggie: "Leslie!" 

Leslie : " Maggie ! " They embrace tenderly, 
and Maggie, looking back more than once, goes on 
her way, while Leslie sits staring absently at the 
birches. She remains in this dreary reverie till she 
is startled by a footfall in the road, when she rises 
in a sudden panic. Blake listlessly advances to- 
ward her ; at the sight of her he halts, and they 
both stand silently regarding each other. 



n. 

Leslie and Blake. 

Leslie : " Oh ! You said you were going away/ 

Blalce : " Are you in such haste to have me 
gone ? I had to wait for the afternoon stage ; I 
could n't walk. I thought I might keep faith with 
you by staying away from the house till it was time 
to start." 

Leslie, precipitately : " Do you call that keeping 
faith with me ? Is leaving me all alone keeping — 
Oh, yes, yes, it is ! You have done right. It 's I 
who can't keep faith with myself. Why did you 
come here ? You knew I would be here ! I 
did n't think you could be guilty of such duplicity." 

Blake : " I had no idea of finding you here, but 
if I had known you were here perhaps I could n't 
bave kept away. The future does n't look very 
bright to me, Miss Bellingham. I had a crazy 



Blake's Saving Doubt. 125 

notion that perhaps I might somehow find some- 
thing of the past here that I could make my own. 
I wanted to come and stand here, and think once 
more that it all really happened — that here I saw 
the pity in your face, that made me so glad of my 
hurt." 

Leslie : " No ; stop ! It was n't pity ! It was 
nothing good or generous. It was mean regret 
that I should be under such an obligation to you ; 
it was a selfish and despicable fear that you would 
have a claim upon my acquaintance which I must 
recognize." Blake makes a gesture of protest and 
disbelief, and seems about to speak, but she hurries 
on : " You must n't go away with one good thought 
of me. Since we parted, three hours ago, I have 
learned to know myself as I never did before, and 
now I see what a contemptible thing I am. I flat- 
tered myself that I had begged you to go away 
because I did n't like to cross the wishes of my 
family, but it was n't that. It was — oh, listen ! and 
try if you can imagine such vileness : I 'm so much 
afraid of the world I 've always lived in, that no 
matter how good and brave and wise and noble 



126 Out of the Question. 

you were, still if any one should laugh or sneer at 
you because you had been — what you have been 
— I should be ashamed of you. There ! I 'm so 
low and feeble a creature as that ; and that 's the 
real reason why you must go and forget me ; and I 
must not think and you must not think it 's from 
any good motive I send you away." 

Blake : " I don't believe it ! " 

Leslie : « What ! " 

Blake : " I don't believe what you say. Nothing 
shall rob me of my faith in you. Do you think 
that I 'm not man enough to give up what I 've no 
right to because it 's the treasure of the world? 
Do you think I can't go till you make me believe 
that what I 'd have sold my life for is n't worth a 
straw ? No ! I '11 give up my hope, I '11 give up 
my love, — poor fool I was to let it live an in- 
stant! — but my faith in you is something dearer 
yet, and I '11 keep that till I die. Say what you 
will, you are still first among women to me: the 
most beautiful, the noblest, the best ! " 

Leslie, gasping, and arresting him in a movement 
to turn away : " Wait, wait ; don't go ! Speak ; 



Blake's Saving Doubt. 127 

Bay it again ! Say that you don't believe it ; that 
it is n't true ! " 

Blake : " No, I don't believe it. No, it is n't 
true. It 's abominably false ! " 

Leslie,^ bursting into tears : " Oh yes, it is. It 's 
abominable, and it 's false. Yes, I will believe in 
myself again. I know that if I had cared for — 
any one, as — as you cared, as you said you cared 
for me, I could be as true to them as you would be 
through any fate. Oh, thank you, thank you ! " 
At the tearful joy of the look she turns on him he 
starts toward her. " Oh ! " — she shrinks away — 
" you must n't think that I " — 

Blake : " I don't think anything that does n't 
worship you ! " 

Leslie : " Yes, but what I said sounds just like 
the other, when you misunderstood me so heart 
lessly." 

Blake : " I don't misunderstand you now. You 
do tell me that you love me, don't you ? How 
should I dare hope without your leave?" 

Leslie : " You said you would n't have taken me 
as a gift if I had. You said you 'd have hated me. 
You said " — 



128 Out of the Question. 

Blake : " I was all wronoj in what I thonsrht. 
I'm ashamed to think of that; but I was right in 
what I said." 

Leslie: "Oh, were you! If you could misunder- 
stand me then, how do you know that you 're not 
misunderstanding me now ? " 

Blake : " Perhaps I am. Perhaps I 'm dream- 
ing as wildly as I was then. But you shall say. 
Ami?" 

Leslie, demurely : " I don't know ; I " — staying 
his instantaneous further approach with extended 
arm — " No, no ! " She glances fearfully round 
'' Wait ; come with me. Come back with me — 
that is, if you will." 

Blake, passionately : " If I will ! " 

Leslie, with pensive archness: "I want you to 
help me clear up my character." 

Blake, gravely : " Leslie, may I " — 

Leslie : " I can't talk with you here." 

Blake, sadly : " I will not go back with you 
to make sorrow for you and trouble among your 
friends. It 's enough to know that you don't for- 
bid me to love you." 



Blake's Saving DouhL 129 

Leslie : " Oh no, it is n't enough — for every- 
body." 

Blake : « Leslie " — 

Leslie : •" Miss Bellingham, please ! " 

Blake : " Miss Bellingham " — 

Leslie: "Well?" 

Blake, after a stare of rapturous perplexity: 
« Nothing ! " 

Leslie, laughing through her tears : " If you 
don't make haste you will be too late for the stage, 
and then you can't get away till to-morrow." 



VI. 

MR. CHARLES BELLINGHAM'S DIPLOMACY. 



I. 

Mrs. Bellingham, Mrs. Murray, and Mr. 
Charles Bellingham. 

In the parlor with Mrs. Bellingham and Mrs. 
Murray sits a gentleman no longer young, but in 
the bloom of a comfortable middle life, with blonde 
hair tending to baldness, accurately parted in the 
middle, and with a handsome face, lazily shrewd, 
supported by a comely substructure of double chin, 
and traversed by a full blonde mustache. He is 
simply, almost carelessly, yet elegantly dressed in a 
thin summer stuff, and he has an effect of recent 
arrival. His manner has distinction, enhanced and 
refined by the eye-glasses which his near-sighted- 
ness obliges him to wear. He sits somewhat pon- 
derously in the chair in which he has planted a 
person just losing its earlier squareness in the lines 
of beauty ; his feet are set rather wide apart in the 
feshion of gentlemen approaching a certain weight ; 



134 Out of the Question. 

and he lias an air of amiable resolution as of a 
man who having dined well yesterday means to 
dine well to-day. 

Charles Bellingham^ smiling amusement and in- 
dolently getting the range of his aunt through his 
glasses : " So I have come a day after the fair." 

Mrs. Murray : " That is your mother's opinion." 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Yes, Charles, Leslie had 
known what to do herself, and had done it, even 
before I spoke to her. I 'm sorry we made you 
drag all the way up here, for nothing." 

Bellingham : " Oh, I don't mind it, mother. 
Duty called, and I obeyed. My leisure can wait 
for my return. The only thing is that they 've got 
a new fellow at the club now, who interprets one 's 
ideas of planked Spanish mackerel with a senti- 
ment that amounts to genius. I suppose you 
plank horn-pout, here. But as to coming for noth- 
ing, I 'd much rather do that than come for some- 
thing, in a case like this. You say Leslie saw 
herself that it would n't do ? " 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Yes, she had really behaved 
admirably, Charles ; and when I set the whole 
matter before her, she fully agreed with me." 



Mr. Charles BellingharrCs Diplomacy. 136 

Bellingham : " But you think she rather liked 
him?" 

Mrs. Bellingham, sighing a little : " Yes, there is 
no doubt of that." 

Bellingham, musingly : " Well, it 's a pity. Be- 
haved rather well in that tramp business, you 
said?" 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Nobly." 

Bellingham : " And has n't pushed himself, at 
all?" 

Mrs. Bellingham: "Not an instant." 

Bellingham : " Well, I 'm sorry for him, poor 
fellow, but I 'm glad the thing 's over. It would 
have been an awkward affair, under all the circum- 
stances, to take hold of. I say, mother," — with a 
significant glance at Mrs. Murray, — " there has n't 
been anything — ah — abrupt in the management 
of this matter? You ladies sometimes forget the 
limitations of action in your amiable eagerness to 
have things over, you know." 

Mrs. Bellingham : " I think your mother would 
not forget herself in such a case.'* 

Bellingham : " Of course, of course ; excuse my 



136 (Jut of the Question. 

asking, mother. But you're about the only 
woman that would n't." 

Mrs. Murray, bitterly : "Oh, your mother and 
Leslie have both used him with the greatest tender- 
ness." 

Bellingham, dryly : " I 'm glad to hear it ; I 
never doubted it. If the man had been treated 
by any of my family with the faintest slight after 
what had happened, I should have felt bound as 
a gentleman to offer him any reparation in my 
power, — to make him any apology. People of 
our sort can't do anything shabby." Mrs. Murray 
does not reply, but rises from her place on the sofa 
and goes to the window. " Does Leslie know I 'm 
here ? " 

Mrs. Bellingham, with a little start : " Really, I 
forgot to tell her you were coming to-:day ; we had 
been keeping it from her, and " — 

Bellingham : " I don't know that it matters. 
Where is she ? " 

Mrs. Bellingham: "I saw her going out with 
Maggie Wallace. I dare say she will be back 
Boon." 



Mr. Charles Bellingharrts Diplomacy. 137 

Bellingham: "All right. Where is the young 
man ? Has he gone yet? " 

Mrs. Bellingham : " No, he could n't go till the 
afternoon stage leaves. He 's still here." 

Bellingham: "I must look him up, and make 
my acknowledgments to him." He rises. " By 
the way, what 's his name ? " 

Mrs. Murray^ standing with her face toward the 
window, leans forward and inclines to this side and 
that, as if to make perfectly sure before speaking 
of some fact of vivid interest which seems to have 
caught her notice, and at the moment Bellingham 
puts his question summons her sister-in-law in a 
voice of terrible incrimination and triumph : " Mar- 
ion, did you say Leslie had gone out with Maggie 
Wallace ? " 

Mrs. Bellingham., indifferently : " Yes." 
Mrs. Murray: "Will you be kind enough to 
step here ? " Mrs. Bellingham, with a little lady-like 
surprise, approaches, and Mrs. Murray indicates 
with a stabbing thrust of her hand, the sight which 
Vas so much interested her : " Does that look as if 
t were all over ? " 



138 Out of the Question, 

Bellingham, carelessly, as Mrs. BelliDgham with 
great evident distress remains looking in the direc- 
tion indicated : " "What 's the matter now ? " 

Mrs. Murray: "^Nothing. I merely wished your 
mother to enjoy a fresh proof of Leslie's discre- 
tion. She is returning to tell us that it 's out of 
the question in company with the young man him- 
self." 

Bellingham : " Wha — ha, ha, ha ! — What ? " 

Mrs. Murray : " She is returning with the young 
man from whom she had just parted forever." 

Bellingham, approaching : " Oh, come now, aunt." 

Mrs. Murray, fiercely : " Will you look for your- 
self, if you don't believe me ? '* 

Bellingham : " Oh, I believe you, fast enough, 
but as for looking, you know I could n't tell the 
man in the moon at this distance, if Leslie hap- 
pened to be walking home with him. But is the 
— ah — fat necessarily in the fire, because " — 
Mrs. Murray whirls away from Bellingham where 
he remains with his hands on his hips peering 
over his mother's shoulder, and pounces upon a 
large opera-glass which stands on the centre-table, 



Mr. Charles BellingJiam^s Diplomacy, 139 

and returning with it thrusts it at him. " Eh ? 
What?" 

Mrs. Murray .1 excitedly : " It 's what we watch 
the loons on the lake with." 

Bellingham : " Well, but I don't see the applica- 
tion. They 're not loons on the lake." 

Mrs. Murray : " No ; but they 're loons on the 
land, and it comes to the same thing." She vehe- 
mently presses the glass upon him. 

Bellingham, gravely : " Do you mean, aunt, that 
you actually want me to watch my sister through 
an opera-glass, like a shabby Frenchman at a 
watering-place ? Thanks. I could never look Les 
in the face again. It 's a little too much like eaves- 
dropping." He folds his arms, and regards his 
aunt with reproachful amazement, while she dashes 
back to set the glass on the table again. 

Mrs. Bellingham, in great trouble : " Wait, Kate. 
Charles, dear, I — I think you must." 

Bellingham : " W^hat ? " 

Mrs. Bellingham: "Yes, you had better look. 
You will have to proceed in this matter now, and 
vou must form feome conclusions beforehand." 

Bellingham : " But mother " — 



140 Out of the Question. 

Mrs. Bellingham, anxiously : " Don't worry me, 
Charles. I think you must." 

Bellingham : " All right, mother." He unfolds 
his arms and accepts the glass from her. " I never 
knew you to take an unfair advantage, and I '11 
obey you on trust. But I tell you I don't like it. 
I don't like it at all," — getting the focus, with 
several trials ; " I 've never stolen sheep, but I think 
I can realize, now, something of the self-reproach 
which misapprojjriated mutton might bring. Where 
did you say they were ? Oh, over there ! / was 
looking off here, at that point. They 're coming 
this way, aren't they?" With a start: "Hollo! 
She 's got his arm ! Oh, that won't do. I 'm sur- 
prised at Les doing that, unless " — continuing to 
look — " By Jove ! He 's not a bad-looking fel- 
low, at all. He — Why, confound it ! No, it 
can't be ! Why, yes — no — yes, it is, it is — 
by Heaven, it is — by all that 's strange it is — 
Blake ! " He lets the glass fall ; and stands glar- 
ing at his aunt and mother, who confront him in 
speechless mystification. 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Blake ? Why, of course it *8 
Blake. We told you it was Mr. Blake ! " 



Mr Charles Bellingham! s Diplomacy. 141 

Bellingham : " No, I beg your pardon, mother 
you did n't ! You never told me it was anybody 
— by name." 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Well ? " 

Bellingham : " Why, don't you understand, 
mother ? It 's mg Blake ! " 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Your Blake ? Your — 
Charles, what do you mean ? " 

Bellingham : " Why, I mean that this is the 
man " — giving his glasses a fresh pinch on his nose 
with his thumb and forefinger — " that fished me 
out of the Mississippi. I flatter myself he could n't 
do it now. 'The grossness of my nature would 
have weight to drag him down,' — both of us down. 
But he 'd try it, and he 'd have the pluck to go 
down with me if he failed. Come, mother, you see 
/ can't do anything in .this matter. It 's simply 
impossible. It 's out of the question." 

Mrs. Murray : " Why is it out of the question ? " 

Bellingham : " Well, I don't know that I can ex- 
plain, aunt Kate, if it is n't clear to you, already." 

Mrs. Bellingham, recovering from the dismay 
c\ which her son's words have plunged her: 



142 Out of the Question. 

" Charles, Charles ! Do you mean that this Mr 
Blake is the person who saved you from " — 

Bellingham : " From a watery grave ? I do, 
mother." 

Mi^s, Bellingham : " There must be some mistake. 
You can't tell at this distance, Charles." 

Bellingham : " There 's no mistake, mother. I 
should know Blake on the top of Ponkwasset. 
He was rather more than a casual acquaintance, 
you see. By Jove, I can't think of the matter 
with any sort of repose. T can see it all now, just 
as if it were somebody else : I was weighted down 
down with my accoutrements, and I went over the 
side of the boat like a flash, and under that yellow 
deluge like a bullet. I had just leisure to think 
what a shame it was my life should go for nothing 
at a time when we needed men so much, when I 
felt a grip on my hair," — rubbing his bald spot, — 
" it could n't be done now ! Then I knew I was 
all right, and waited for developments. The only 
development was Blake. He fought shy of me, if 
you '11 believe it, after that, till I closed with him 
one day and had it out with him, and convinced 



3Ir. Charles BeWmgliarrC s Diplomacy. 143 

nim that lie had done rather a handsome thing by 
me. But that was the end of it. I could n't get 
him to stand anything else in the way of gratitude. 
Blake had a vice : he was proud." 

Mrs. Bellingham : " And what became of him ? " 
Bellingham : " Who ? Blake ? He was the 
engineer of the boat, I ought to explain. He was 
transferred to a gunboat after that, and I believe 
he stuck to it throughout the fighting on the Mis- 
sissippi. It's — let me see — it's five years now 
since I saw him in Nebraska, when I went out 
there to grow up with the country, and found I 
could n't wait for it." After a pause : " I don't 
know what it was about Blake ; but he somehow 
made everybody feel that there was stuff in him. 
In the three weeks we were together we became 
great friends, and I must say I never liked a man 
better. Well, that 's why, aunt Kate." 

Mrs. Murray : " I don't see that it has anything 
whatever to do with the matter. The question is 
whether you wish Leslie to marry a man of his 
Rtation and breeding, or not. His goodness and 
greatness have nothing to do with it. The fact re- 



144 Out of the Question. 

mains that he is not at all her equal — that he 
is n't a gentleman " — 

Bellingham : " Oh, come now, aunt Kate. 
You 're not going to tell me that a man who saved 
my life is n't a gentleman ? " 

Mrs. Murray : " And you 're not going to tell 
me that a steamboat engineer is a gentleman ? " 

Bellingham, disconcerted : " Eh ? " 

Mrs. Murray : " The question is, are you going 
to abandon that unha^Dpy girl to her fancy for a 
man totally unfit to be her husband simply because 
he happened to save your life ? " 

Bellingham : " Why, you see, aunt Kate" — 

Mrs. Murray : " Do you think it would be gen- 
tlemanly to do it ?" 

Bellingham : " Well, if you put it that way, no, 
1 don't. And if you want to know, I don't see 
my way to behaving like a gentleman in this con- 
nection, whatever I do." He scratches his head 
ruefully : " The fact is that the advantages are all 
on Blake's side, and he '11 have to manage very 
badly if he does n't come out the only gentleman 
m the business." After a moment: "How was it 



Mr, Charles BellinghawHs Diplomacy. 145 

you did n't put the name and the — a — profession 
together, mother, and reflect that this was my 
Blake?" 

Mrs. Bellinghamy with plaintive reproach : 
" Charles, you know how uncommunicative you 
were about all your life as a soldier. You never 
told me half so much about this affair before, and 
you never — it seems very heartless now that I 
didn't insist on knowing, but at the time it was 
only part of the nightmare in which we were liv- 
ing — you never told me his name before." 

Bellingham : " Did n't I ? Well ! I supposed I 
had, of course. Um ! That was too bad. I say, 
mother, Blake has never let anything drop tha,t 
made you think he had ever known me, or done 
me any little favor, I suppose ? " 

Mrs. Bellingham : " No, not the slightest hint. 
If he had only " — 

Bellingham : " Ah, that was like him, confound 

him!" Bellingham muses again with a hopeless 

air, and then starts suddenly from his reverie : 

■* Why, the fact is, you know, mother, Blake is 

10 



146 Out of the Question. 

really a magnificent fellow ; and you know — well, 
I like him ! " 

3frs. Murray : " Oh ! That 's Leslie's excuse ! " 

BeUingham: "Eh?" 

Mrs. Murray: "If you are going to take 
Leslie's part, it's fortunate you have common 
ground. LiJce him ! " 

BeUingham : " Mother, what is the unhallowed 
hour for dinner in these wilds ? One o'clock ? I 've 
a fancy for tackling this business after dinner." 

Mrs. BeUingham : " I 'm afraid, my dear, that it 
can't be put off. They must be here, soon." 

BeUingham, sighing : " Well ! Though they 
didn't seem to be hurrying." 

Mrs. Murray, bitterly : " If they could only 
know what a friendly disposition there was towards 
him here, I 'm sure they 'd make haste ! " 

BeUingham : " Um ! " 

Mrs. BeUingham, after a pause : " You don't 
know anything about his — his — family, do you, 
Charles ? " 

BeUingham : " No, mother, I don't. My im- 
pressiou is that he has no family, any more than 



Mr. Charles BellingJianC s Diplomacy. 147 

— Adam; or — protoplasm. All I know about 
him is that he was from first to last one of those 
natural gentlemen that upset all your preconceived 
notions of those things. His associations must 
have been commoner than — well it's impossible 
to compare them to anything satisfactory ; but I 
never saw a trait in him or heard a word from 
him that was n't refined. He gave me the impres- 
sion of a very able man, too, as I was just saying, 
but where his strength lay, I can't say." 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Leslie says he 's an in- 
ventor." 

Bellingham: «Well, very likely. I remember, 
now : he was a machinist by trade, I believe, and 
he was an enlisted man on the boat when the engi- 
neer was killed ; and Blake was the man who 
could step right into his place. It was considered 
a good thing amongst those people. He was a 
reader in his way, and most of the time he had 
Bome particularly hard-headed book in his hand 
when he was off duty, — about physics or meta- 
physics ; used to talk them up now and then, very 
\fe\\. I never had any doubt abo-at his coming 



148 Out of the Question. 

out all right. He 's a baffler, Blake is, — at least 
he is, for me. Now I suppose aunt Kate, here, 
does n't find him baffling, at all. She takes our lit- 
tle standards, our little weights and measures, and 
tests him with them, and she 's perfectly satisfied 
with the result. It 's a clear case of won 't do." 
Mrs. Murray : " Do you say it is n't ? " 
BelUngham : " No ; I merely doubt if it is. 
You don't doubt, and there you have the advantage 
of me. You always were a selected oyster, aunt 
Kate, and you always knew that you could n't be 
improved upon. Now, I 'm a selected oyster, too, 
apparently, but I 'm not certain that I 'm the best 
choice that could have been made. I 'm a huitre 
de mon siecle ; I am the ill-starred mollusk that 
doubts. Of course we can't go counter to the 
theory that God once created people and no-people, 
and that they have nothing to do but to go on re- 
producing themselves and leave him at leisure for 
the rest of eternity. But really, aunt Kate, I have 
Been some things in my time — and I don't mind 
saying Blake is one of them — that made me think 
the Creator was still — active. I admit that i* 



Mr. Charles Bellingham' s Diplomacy. 149 

sounds" — fitting his glasses on — "rather absurd 
for an old diner-out like myself to say it." 

Mrs. Murray, with energy : " All this is neither 
here nor there, Charles, and you know it. The 
simple question is whether you wish your sister to 
marry a man whose past you'll be ashamed to be 
frank about. I '11 admit, if you like, that he 's 
quite our equal, — our superior ; but what are you 
going to do with your ex-steamboat engineer in so- 
ciety ? " 

Bellingham, dubiously: "Well, it would be 
rather awkward." 

Mrs. Murray : " How will you introduce him, 
and what will you say to people about his family 
and his station and business ? Or do you mean to 
banish yourself and give up the world which you 
find so comfortable for the boon of a brother-in- 
law whom you don't really know from Adam ? " 

Bellingham : " Well, I must allow the force of 
your argument. " Yes," — after a gloomy little 
reverie, — " you 're right. It won't do. It is out 
of the question. I '11 put an end to it, — if it 
'}oes n't put an end to me. That ' weird seizure ' 



150 Out of the Question. 

as of misappropriated mutton oppresses me again. 
Mother, I think you 'd better go away, — you and 
aunt Kate, — and let me meet him and Leslie here 
alone, when they come in. Or, I say: if you 
could detach Les, and let him come in here by 
himself, somehow ? I don't suppose it can bo 
done. Nothing seems disposed to let itself bo 
done." 

Mrs. BelUngham : " Charles, I 'm sorry this dis- 
agreeable business should fall to you." 

BelUngham : " Oh, don't mind it, mother 
What's a brother for, if he can't be called upon to 
break off his sister's love affairs ? But I don't 
deny it 's a nasty business." 

Mrs. Murray, in retiring : " I sincerely hope he '11 
make it so for you, and cure you of your absurdi- 
ties.'* 



Bellingham and Mrs. Bellingham; Leslie and 
Blake, without. 

Bellingham : " O Parthian shaft ! Wish me 
well out of it, mother ! " 

Mrs. Bellingham, sighing : " I do, Charles ; I do 
with all my heart. You have the most difficult 
duty that a gentleman ever had to perform. I don't 
see how you 're to take hold of it ; I don't, indeed." 

Bellingham : " Well, it is embarrassing. But it 's 
a noble cause, and I suppose Heaven will befriend 
me. The trouble is, don't you know, I have n't 
got any — any point of view, any tenable point 
of view. It won't do to act simply in our own in- 
terest ; we can't do that, mother ; we 're not the 
sort. I must try to do it in Blake's behalf, and 
that 's what I don't see my way to, exactly. What 
I wish to do is to make my interference a magnani- 
mous benefaction to Blake, — something that he 'U 



152 Out of the Question. 

recognize in after years with gratitude as a — a 
mysterious Providence. If I 've got to be a snob, 
mother, I wish to be a snob on the highest possible 
grounds." 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Don't use that word, 
Charles. It's shocking." 

Bellingham : " Well, I won't, mother. I say : 
can't you think of some disqualifications in Leslie, 
that I could make a point d'oppui in a conscien- 
tious effort to serve Blake ? " 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Charles !" 
Bellingham : " I mean, is n't she rather a 
worldly, frivolous, fashionable spirit, devoted to 
pleasure, and incapable of sympathizing with — 
with his higher moods, don't you know .'' Som6- 
thing like that ? " Bellingham puts his thumbs in 
his waistcoat pockets and inclines towards his 
mother with a hopeful smile. 

Mrs. Bellingham. : " No, Charles ; you know she 
is nothing of the kind. She 's a girl and she likes 
amusement, but I should like to see the man whose 
moods were too lofty for Leslie. She is every- 
thing that 's generous and true and high-minded.** 



Mr. Charles BellingharrC s Diplomacy, 153 

Bellingham, scratching his head : " That 's bad ! 
Then she is n't — ah — she has n't any habits of 
extravagance that would unfit her to be the wife of 
a poor man who — ah — had his way to make in 
the world?" 

Mrs. Bellinyham : " She never spends half her 
allowance on herself; and besides, Charles, (how 
ridiculously you talk ! ) she has all that money 
your uncle left her, and if she marries him, he 
won't be poor any longer." 

Bellingham, eagerly : " And that would ruin his 
career ! Still " — after a moment's thought — "I 
don't see how I 'm to use that idea, exactly. No, I 
shall have to fall back on the good old ground that 
it 's simply — out of the question. I think that 's 
good ; it has a thorough, logical, and final sound. 
I shall stick to that. Well, leave me to my fate ! 
— Hollo ! That 's Blake's voice, now. I don't 
wonder it takes Leslie. It's the most sympathetic 
voice in the world. They 're coming up here, 
are n't they ? You 'd better go, mother. I wish 
you could have got Leslie away " — 

Leslie, without : " Wait for me, there. I must 



154 Out of the Question. 

go to mamma's room at once, aud tell her every- 
thing." 

BlaJce, without : " Of course. And say that I 
wish to see her." 

Leslie: " Good-by." 

Blake: " Good-by." 

Leslie : " We won't keep you long. Good-hj." 

Blake : " Good-hj" As he enters one of the 
parlor doors, flushed and radiant, Mrs. Bellingham 
retreats through the other. 



m. 

Blake and Bellingham. 

JBellingham, coming promptly forward to greet 
Blake, with both hands extended : " Blake ! " 

Blake, after a moment of stupefaction : " Bel- 
lingham ! " 

Bellingham : " My dear old fellow ! '* He wrings 
Blake fervently by the left hand. " This is the 
most astonishing thing in the world ! To find you 
here — in New England — with my people ; it 's 
the most wonderful thing that ever was ! They 've 
been — ah — been telling me all about you, my 
mother has ; and I want to thank you — you look 
uncommonly well, Blake, and not a day older ! 
Do you mean to go through life with that figure ? 
— thank you for all you 've done for them ; and — 
I don't know : what does a man say to a fellow 
who has behaved as vou did in that business with 



156 Out of the Question. 

the tramps?" — wringing Blake's left hand again 
and gently touching his right arm in its sling. 
" By Jove, old fellow ! I don't know what to say, 
to you ; I — Do you think it was quite the thing, 
though, not to intimate that you 'd known me ? 
Come, now ; that was n't fair. It was n't frank. 
It was n't like you, Blake. Hey ? " He affection- 
ately presses Blake's hand at every emphatic 
word. 

Blake, releasing himself: " I did n't like it : but 
I could n't help it. It would have seemed to 
claim something, and I should have had to allow 
— they would have found out " — 

Bellingham : " That you happened to save my 
life, once. Well, upon my word, I don't think it 
was a- thing to be ashamed of; at least, at that 
time ; I was in the army, then. At present — I 
don't know that I should blame you for hushing 
the matter up." 

Blake, who has turned uneasily away, and has 
apparently not been paying the closest attention 
to Bellingham's reproaches, but now confronts 
him: "I suppose you're a gentleman. Belling* 
ham." 



Mr, Charles BellinghcmCs Diplomacy. 157 

Bellingham, taking the abruptness of Blake's 
question with amiable irony : " There have been 
moments in which I have flattered myself to that 
degree ; even existence itself is problematical, to 
my mind, at other times : but — well, yes, I sup- 
pose I am a gentleman. The t^rm 's conventional. 
And then ? " 

Blake : " I mean that you 're a fair-minded, 
honest man, and that I can talk to you without the 
risk of being misunderstood or having any sort of 
meanness attributed to me ? " 

Bellingham : " I should have to be a much 
shabbier fellow than I am, for anything of that 
sort, Blake." 

Blake : " I did n't expect to find you here ; I 
was expecting to speak with your mother. But 
I don't see why I should n't say to you what 
I have to say. In fact, I think I can say it better 
to you." 

Bellingham : " Thanks, Blake ; you '11 always 
find me your — That is — well, go ahead ! " 

Blake : " You don't think I 'm a man to do any- 
thing sneaking, do you ? " 



158 Out of the Question. 

Belliagham: " Again? My dear fellow, that goes 
tvithout saying. It's out of the question." 

Blake, walking up and down, and stopping from 
time to time while he speaks in a tone of pas- 
sionate self-restraint : " Well, I 'm glad to hear 
that, because I know that to some the thing might 
have a different look." After a pause, in which 
Blake takes another turn round the room and ar- 
rives in front of Bellingham again : " If youi 
people have been telling you about me, I suppose 
they 've hinted — but I don't care to know it — 
that they think I 'm in love with Miss Bellingham, 
your sister. I am ! " lie looks at Bellingham, 
who remains impassive behind the glitter of his 
eye-glasses : " Do you see any reason why I 
should n't be?" 

Bellingham, reluctantly : " N-no.'* 

Blahe : " I believe — no, I ca7i't believe it ! — 
but I know that Miss Bellingham permits it ; that 
she — I can't say it ! Is there any — any reason 
why I should n't ask her mother's leave to ask 
her to be my wife? Why, of course, there is ! — • 
a thousand, million reasons in my unworthiness ; 
r know that. But is there " — 



Mr. Charles Bellingham's Diploinacy. 159 

Bellingham, abruptly : "Blake, my dear fellow 
— my dear, good old boy — it won't do ; it 's out 
of the qnestion ! It is, it is indeed ! It won't do at 
all. Confound it, man ! You know I like you, 
that I 've always wanted to be a great deal more 
your friend than you would ever let me. Don't 
ask me why, but take my word for it when I tell 
you it 's out of the question. There are a thou- 
sand reasons, as you say, though there is n't one of 
them in any fault of yours, old fellow. But I can't 
give them. It won't do ! " Bellingham in his 
turn begins to walk up and down the room with 
a face of acute misery and hopelessness, and at the 
last word he stops and stares helplessly into 
Blake's eyes, who has remained in his place. 

Blake.y with suppressed feeling: "Do you ex- 
pect me to be satisfied with that answer ? " 

Bellingham^ at first confused and then with a 
burst of candor : " No ; I would n't, myself." His 
head falls, and a groan breaks from his lips : " This 
is the roughest thing I ever knew of. Hang it, 
Blake, don't you see what a — a — box I 'm in ? 
People pulling and hauling at me, and hammering 



160 Out of the Question. 

awaj on all sides, till I don't know which end I'm 
standing on ! You would n't like it yourself. Why 
do you ask ? Why must you be — ah — satisfied ? 
Come ! Why don't you let it all — go ? " 

Blake : " Upon my word, Bellingham, you 
talk " — 

Bellingham : " Like a fool ! I know it. And 
it 's strictly in character. At the present moment 
I feel like a fool. I am a fool ! By Jove, if I 
ever supposed I should get into such a tight place 
as this ! Why, don't you see, Blake, what an ex- 
tremely unfair advantage you have of me ? Deuce 
take it, man, / have some rights in the matter, 
too, I fancy ! " 

Blake, bewildered ; " Rights ? Advantage .'' I 
don't understand all this." 

Bellingham : " How not understand ? " 

Blake, gazing in mystified silence at Belling- 
ham for a brief space, and then resuming more 
steadily : " There 's some objection to me, that 'a 
clear enough. I don't make any claim, but you 
would think I ought to know what the matter is 
Ivould n't you ? " 



Mr. Gharles BeUingham' s Diplomacy. 161 

BeUingham : " Y-yes, Blake." 

Blake : " I know that I 'm ten years older than 
Miss BeUingham, and that it might look as if " — 

BeUingham, hastily: "Oh, not in the least — not 
in the least ! " 

Blake : " Our acquaintance was n't regularly 
made, I believe. But you don't suppose that I 
urged it, or that it would have been kept up if it 
had n't been for their kindness and for chances that 
nobody foresaw ? " 

BeUingham : " There is n't a circumstance of the 
whole affair that is n't perfectly honorable to you, 
Blake ; that is n't like you. Confound it " — 

Blake : " I won't ask you whether you think I 
thought of her being rich ? " 

BeUingham. : " No, sir ! That would be offen- 
sive." 

Blake : " Then what is it ? Is there some per- 
sonal objection to me with your family ? " 

BeUingham, : " There is n't at all, Blake, I as- 
sure you." 

Blake : " Then I don't understand, and " — with 
rising spirit — "I want to say once for all that 1 
11 



162 Out of the Question. 

think your leaving me to ask these things and put 
myself on the defensive in this way, begging you 
for this reason and for that, is n't what I 'm used 
to. But I 'm like a man on trial for his life, and I 
stand it. Now, go on and say what there is to say. 
Don't spare my feelings, man ! I have no pride 
where she is concerned. What do you know 
against me that makes it impossible ? '* 

Bellingham : " O Lord ! It is n't against you. 
It 's nothing personal ; personally we 've all rea- 
son to respect and honor you ; you 've done us 
nothing but good in the handsomest way. But it 
won't do for all that. There 's an incompatibility 
— a — a — /don't know what to call it! Con- 
found it, Blake ! You know very well that 
there 's none of that cursed nonsense about me. 1 
don't care what a man is in life ; I only ask what 
he is in himself. I accept the American plan in 
good faith. I know all sorts of fellows ; devilish 
good fellows some of them are, too ! Why, I had 
ihat Mitchell, who behaved so well at the Squat- 
tick Mills disaster, to dine with me ; went down 
tnd looked him up, and had him to dine with me. 



Mr. Charles BelUngham' s Diplomacy. 163 

Some of the men did n't think it was the thing ; 
but I can assure you that he talked magnificently 
about the affair. I drew him out, and before we 
were done we had the whole room about us. I 
would n't have missed it on any account. That 's 
my way." 

Blake, dryly : " It 's a very magnanimous way. 
The man must have felt honored." 

BelUngham : " What ? — Oh, deuce take it ! I 
don't mean any of that patronizing rot, you know 
I don't. You know I think such a man as that 
ten times as good as myself. What I mean is that 
it's different with women. They haven't got the 
same — what shall I say ? — horizons, social ho- 
rizons, don't you know. They can't accept a man 
for what he is in himself. They have to take him 
for what he is n't in himself. They have to have 
their world carried on upon the European plan, 
in short. I don't know whether I make myself 
understood " — « 

Blake, y^\\\\ hardness: "Yes, you do. The ob- 
jection is to my having been " — 

BelUngham, hastily interposing : " Well — ah — 



1 64 Out of the Question. 

no ! I can't admit that. It is n't the occupation. 
We 've all been occupied more or less remotely in 
■ — in some sort of thing ; a man's a fool who tries 
to blink that. But I don't know that I can make 
it clear how our belonging, now, to a different 
order of things makes our women distrustful — I 
won't say skeptical, but anxious — as to the in- 
fluence of — ah — other social circumstances. 
They 're mere creatures of tradition, women are, 
and where you or I, Blake," — with caressing good 
comradeship and the assumption of an impartial 
high-mindedness, — " would n't care a straw for a 
man's trade or profession, they are more disposed 
to — ah — particularize, and — don't you know — 
distinguish ! " 

Blahe, gravely : " I tried to make Miss Belling 
ham understand from the first just what I was and 
had been. I certainly never concealed anything. 
Do you think she would care for what disturbs the 
other ladies of your family ? " 

Bellingham : " Leslie ? Well, she 's still a very 
young girl, and she has streaks of originality that 
father disqualify her for appreciating — ah — 



Mr, Charles BelUngham' s Diplomacy. 165 

She 's romantic ! I 'm sure I'm greatly obliged to 
you, Blake, for taking the thing in this reasonable 
way. You know how to sympathize with one's 
extreme reluctance — and — ah — embarrassment 
in putting a case of the kind." 

Blake, with a sad, musing tone : " Yes, God 
knows I 'm sorry for you. I don't suppose you 
like to do it." 

BelUngham : " Thanks, thanks, Blake. It was 
quite as much on your own account that I spoke. 
They would make it deucedly uncomfortable for 
you in the family, — there 's no end to the aunts 
and grandmothers, and things, and you 'd make 
them uncomfortable too, with your — history." 
Mopping his forehead with his handkerchief : 
" You have it infernally hot, up here, don't you ? " 

Blake, still musingly: "Then you think that 
Miss Bellingham herself would n't be seriously dis- 
tressed ? " 

BelUngham : " Leslie 's a girl that will go 
through anything she 's made up her mind to. 
And if she likes you well enough to marry 
you" — 

Blake : " She says so." 



166 Oat of the Question. 

BeUingham : " Then burning plowshares would n't 
have the smallest effect upon her. But " — 

Blake, quietly : " Then I won't give her up." 

Bellingharn : " Eh ? " 

Blake : " I won't give her up. It 's bad enough 
as it is, but if I were such a sneak as to leave the 
woman who loved me because my marrying her 
would be awkward for her friends, I should be ten 
thousand times unworthier than I am. I am going 
to hold to my one chance of showing myself wor- 
thy to win her, and if she will have me I will have 
her, though it smashes the whole social structure. 
BeUingham, you 're mistaken about this thing ; 
her happiness won't depend upon the success of 
the aunts and cousins in accounting for me to the 
world ; it '11 depend upon whether I 'm man 
enough to be all the world to her. If she thinks 
I am, I will be ! " 

BeUingham : " Oh, don't talk in that illogical 
way, Blake. Confound it ! I know ; I can ac- 
count for your state of feeling, and all that; but I 
do assure you it's mistaken. Let me put it to you. 
You don't see this matter as I do ; you cari'fc 
The best part of a woman's life is social " — 



Mr, Charles BelhnghanCs Diplomacy. 167 

Blahe : " I don't believe that." 

Bellingham: "Well, no matter: it's so; and 
whether you came into Leslie's world or took her 
out of it, you'd make no end of -^ of — row. 
She 'd suffer in a thousand ways." 

Blake : " Not if she loved me, and was the kind 
of girl I take her to be." 

Bellingham : " Oh, yes, she would, my dear fel- 
low; Leslie's a devilish proud girl; she'd suffer 
in secret, but it would try her pride in ways you 
don't know of. Why, only consider : she 's taken 
by surprise in this affair ; she 's had no time to 
think " — 

Blake : " She shall have my whole lifetime to 
make up her mind in ; she shall test me in every 
way she will, and she may fling me away at any 
moment she will, and I will be her slave forever. 
She may give me up, but I will not give her up." 

Bellingham : " Well, well ! We won't dispute 
about terms, but I '11 put it to you, yourself, Blake, 
— yourself. I want you to see that I 'm acting for 
/our good ; that I 'm your friend." 

Blake: "You're her brother, and you're my 



168 Out 'f the Question. 

friend, whatever you say. I 've borne to have you 
insinuate that I 'm your inferior. Go on ! " 
Blake's voice trembles. 

Bellingham : " Oh, now ! Don't take that tone ! 
It is n't fair. It makes me feel like — like the 
very devil. It does, indeed. I don't mean any- 
thing of the kind. I mean simply that — that — 
ah — remote circumstances over which you had — 
ah — no control have placed you at a disadvan- 
tage, — social disadvantage. That 's all. It is n't 
a question of inferiority or superiority. And I 
merely put it to you — as a friend, mind — 
whether the happiness of — ah — all concerned 
could n't be more promptly — ah — secured by 
your refusing to submit to tests that might — 
Come now my dear fellow ! She 's flattered — 
any woman might be — by your liking her ; but 
when she went back to her own associations " — 

Make: "If she sees any man she likes better 
than me, I won't claim her. But I can't judge hei" 
by a loyalty less than my own. She will never 
change." Bellingham essays an answer, but after 
Bome preliminary ahs and ums, abruptly desists, 



Mr. Charles BeUingharri's Diplomacy. 169 

and guards an evidently troubled silence, which 
Blake assails with jealous quickness : " What do 
you mean ? Out with it, man ! " 

Bellingham : " Don't take it in that way ! My 
dear fellow " — 

Blake : " If I 'm her caprice and not her choice, 
I w^nt to know it ! I won't be killed by inches. 
Speak!" 

Bellingham : " Stop ! 1 owe you my life, but 
you must n't take that tone with me." 

Blake : " You owe me nothing, — nothing but 
an answer. If you mean there has been some one 
before me — She has told me that she never 
cared for any one but me ; I believe her, but I 
want to know what you mean." 

Bellingham : " She 's my sister ! What do you 
mean ? *' 



TV. 

Leslie, Blake, and Bellingham. 

Leslie : " Oh, what does it mean ? " She enters 
the room, as if she had been suddenly summoned 
by the sound of their angry voices from a guiltless 
ambush in the hall. At the sight of their flushed 
faces and defiant attitudes she flutters, electrically 
attracted, first toward one and then toward the 
other, but at last she instinctively takes shelter at 
Blake's elbow : " Charles, what are you saying ? 
What are you both so angry for? Oh, I hoped 
to find you such good friends, and here you are 
quarreling ! Charles, what have you been doing ? 
O Charles, I always thought you were so gen- 
erous and magnanimous, and have you been 
joining that odious conspiracy against us ? For 
shame ! And what have you found to say, I 
should like to know ? I should like to know 
what you 've found to say — what a gentlemar 



Mr. Charles BelHngham's Diplomacy. 171 

COULD say, under the circumstances ! " She grows 
more vehement as their mutual embarrassment in- 
creases upon the men, and Bellingham fades into a 
blank dismay behind the glitter of his eyeglasses. 
" Have you been saying something you 're ashamed 
of, Charles ? You could n'4 say anything about 
him, and so you 've been trying to set him against 
me. What have you said about your sister, 
Charles ? — and always pretending to be so fond 
of me ! Oh, oh, oh ! " Miss Bellingham snatches 
her handkerchief from her pocket and hides her 
grief in it, while her brother remains in entire pet- 
rifaction at her prescience. 

Bellingham, finally: "Why, Leslie — Deuce 
take it all, Blake, why don't you say something ? 
I tell you, I have n't said anything against you, 
Les. Blake will tell you himself that I was 
merely endeavoring to set the thing before him 
from different points of view. I wanted him to 
consider the shortness of your acquaintance " — 

Leslie, in her handkerchief: "It's fully three 
weeks since we met, — you hiow it is." 

Bellingham : "And I wanted him to reflect upon 



172 Out of the Question. 

how very different all your associations and — 
traditions — were " — 

Leslie^ still in her handkerchief: " Oh, that was 
delicate — very ! " 

Belliagham : " And to — ah — take into consid- 
eration the fact that returning to another — atmos- 
phere — surroundings, you might — ah — change." 

Leslie, lifting her face : " You did ! Charles, 
did I ever change ? " 

Bellingham : " Well, I don't know. I don't 
know whether you 'd call it changing, exactly ; but 
I certainly got the impression from aunt Kate 
that there was some hope on Dudley's part last 
summer " — 

Leslie, quitting her refuge and advancing fiercely 
upon the dismayed but immovable Bellingham 
with her right hand thrust rigidly down at her side, 
and her left held behind her clutching her handker- 
chief : " Charles, have you dared to intimate that I 
ever cared the least thing about that — that — hor- 
rid — little — reptile ? When you knew that my 
life was made perfectly ghastly by the way aunt 
Kate forced him on me, and it was as much as I 



Mr. Charles BellinghanCs Diplomacy. 173 

could ever do to treat him decently ! I never en- 
couraged him for an instant, and you know it. Oh, 
Charley, Charley, how could you ? It is n't for 
myself I care ; it 's for you, for you 're a gentle- 
man, and you let yourself do that ! How painfully 
strange that low, mean, shabby feeling must have 
been to you ! I don't wonder you could n't face 
me or speak to me. I don't " — 

BelUngham, desperately : " Here ; hold on ! Good 
Lord! I can't stand this! Confound it, I'm not 
made of granite — or gutta-percha. I '11 allow it 
was sneaking, — Blake will tell you I looked it, — 
but it was a desperate case. It was a family job, 
and I had to do my best — or my worst — as the 
head of the family ; and Blake would n't hear rea- 
son, and " — 

Leslie : " And so you thought you 'd ivy fraud ! " 
Bellingham : " Well, I should n't use that word. 
But it 's the privilege of your sex to call a spade a 
pitchfork, if you don't like the spade. I tell you I 
never professed to know anything personally about 
the Dudley business and I did n't say anything 
fl-bout it ; when Blake caught me up so, I was em- 



174 Out of the Question. 

barrassed to think how I might have mentioned it 
in — in the heat of argument. Come, Blake" — 

Leslie, turning and going devoutly up to Blake : 
" Yes, he will defend you. He must save your 
honor since he saved your life." 

Bellinyham, with a start : " Eh ? " 

Leslie : " Oh, I know about it ! Mamma told 
me. She thinks just as I do, now, and she has 
been feeling dreadfully about this shabby work 
she 'd set you at ; but I comforted her. I told her 
you would never do it in the world; that you 
would just shuffle about in your way " — 

Bellingham : " Oh, thanks ! " 

Leslie : " But that you had too good a heart, too 
high a spirit, to breathe a syllable that would 
wound the pride of a brave and generous man to 
whom you owed life itself : that you would rather 
die than do it ! " To Blake : " Oh, I 've always 
been a romantic girl, — you won't mind it in me, 
will you ? — and I 've had my foolish dreams a 
thousand times about the man who risked his life 
to save my brother's ; and I hoped and longed 
that some day we should meet. I promised my- 



Mr. Charles Bellingham!s Diplomacy. 175 

self that I should know him, and I always thought 
how sweet and dear a privilege it would be to 
thank him. I want to thank you for his life as I 
used to dream of doing, but I cannot yet. I can- 
not till you tell me that he has not said one word 
unworthy of you, — unworthy of a gentleman ! " 

Blahe, smiling : " He 's all right ! " 

Leslie, impetuously clinging to him: "Oh, 
thanks, thanks, thanks ! " 

Bellingham, accurately focusing the pair with 
freshly adjusted glasses : " If you '11 both give me 
your blessing, now, I '11 go away, feeling perfectly 
rehabilitated, in the afternoon stage." 



V. 

Mrs. Bellingham, and Leslie, Blake, and Bel- 
lingham; afterwards M.B.S. Murray. 

Mrs. Bellingham, entering the parlor door 
" Stage ? Why, Mr. Blake is n't going away ! " 

Bellingham : " Oh, no, Mr. Blake has kindly 
consented to remain. It was I who thought of 
going. I can't bear to be idle ! " 

Mrs. Bellingham, apart from the others: 
" Charles, dear, I'm sorry I asked you to under- 
take that disagreeable business, and I 'd have come 
back at once with Leslie to relieve you, — to tell 
you that you need n't speak after all, — but she felt 
sure that you would n't, and she insisted upon leav- 
ing you together and then stealing back upon you 
and enjoying " — 

Bellingham, solemnly : " You little knew me, 
mother. I have the making of an iron-hearted 



Mr, Charles Belliii gharri's Diplomacy. 177 

parent in me, and I was crushing all hope out of 
Blake when Leslie came in." 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Charles, you don't mean that 
you said anything to wound the feelings of a man 
to whom you owed your life, — to whom we all 
owe so much ? " 

Bellingham: ^' I don't know ahout his feelings. 
But I represented pretty distinctly to him the 
social incompatability." 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Charles, I wonder at you ! " 

Bellingham : " Oh, yes ! So do I. But if 
you '11 take the pains to recall the facts, that 's ex- 
actly what you left me to do. May I ask what has 
caused you to change your mind ? " 

Mrs. Bellingham^ earnestly : " I found that Les- 
lie's happiness really depended upon it ; and in 
fact, Charles, when I came to reflect, I found that 
I myself liked him." 

Bellingham: " The words have a familiar sound, 
— as if I had used them myself in a former exist- 
ence." Turning from his mother and looking 

about : " I seem to miss a — a support — moral 
12 



178 Out of the Question, 

support — in those present. Where is aunt 
Kate ? " 

Mrs. Murray, appearing at the door : " Marion ! 
Ma " — She hesitates at sight of the peaceful 
grouping. 

Bellingham : " Ah, this is indeed opportune ! 
Come in, aunt Kate, come in ! This is a free 
fight, as they say in Mr. Blake's section. Any one 
can join." Mrs. Murray advances wonderingly 
into the room, and Bellingham turns to his sister, 
where she stands at Blake's side : " Leslie, you 
think I Ve behaved very unhandsomely in this mat- 
ter, don*t you ? " 

Leslie, plaintively : " Charley, you know I hate 
to blame you. But I never could have believed it 
if any one else had told me." 

Bellingham: " All right. Mother, I understand 
that you would have been similarly incredulous ? " 

3frs. Bellingham : " I know that you acted from 
1 good motive, Charles, but you certainly went to 
an extreme that I could never have expected." 

Bellingham: "All right, again. Blake, if the 
persons and relations had all been changed, could 
you have said to me what I said to you ? " 



Mr. Charles BellinghanC s Diplomacy. 179 

Blake : " That is n't a fair question, Belling- 
tiam." 

Bellingham : " All right, as before. Now, aunt 
Kate, I appeal to you. You know all the circum- 
stances in which I was left here with this man who 
saved my life, who rescued Leslie from those 
tramps, who has done you all a thousand kind- 
nesses of various sorts and sizes, who has behaved 
with the utmost delicacy and discretion throughout, 
and is in himself a thoroughly splendid fellow. Do 
you think I did right or wrong to set plainly be- 
fore him the social disadvantages to which his mar- 
rying Leslie would put us ? " 

Mrs. Murray, instantly and with great energy : . 
" Charles, /say — and every person in society, ex- 
cept your mother and sister, would say — that you 
did exactly right ! " 

Bellingham : " That settles it. Blake, my dear 
old fellow, I beg your pardon with all my heart ; 
and I ask you to forget, if you can, every word T 
said. Confound society ! " He offers his hand to 
Blake, who seizes it and wrings it in his own. 

Leslie, as she flings her arms round his neck, 



180 Out of the Question. 

with a fluttering cry of joy : " Oh, Charley, 
Charley, I 've got my ideal back again ! " 

Bellingham, disengaging her arms and putting 
her hand into Blake's : " Both of them." Turning 
to Mrs. Murray : " And now, aunt, I beg your 
pardon. What do you say ? " 

Mrs. Murray, frozenly : " Charles, you know 
my principles." 

Bellingham : " They 're identical on all points 
with my own. Well ? " 

M7:s. Murray, grimly : " Well, then, you know 
that I never would abandon my family, whatever 
happened ! " 

Bellingham : " By Jove, that is n't so bad. We 
must be satisfied to take your forgiveness as we 
get it. Perhaps Leslie might object to the formula- 
tion of"— 

Leslie, super-joyously : " Oh, no ! I object to 
nothing in the world, now, Charles. Aunt Kate 
is too good ! I never should have thought of ask- 
ing her to remain with us.'* 

Bellingham: That isn't so bad, either! You 
are your aunt's own niece. Come, Blake, we 



Mr. Gharles BelUngham's Diplomacy. 181 

can't let this go on. Say something to allay the 
ill feeling you 've created in this family." 

Blahe : " I think I 'd better not try. But if 
you '11 give me time, I '11 do my best to live down 
the objections to me." 

BelHngham : " Oh, you 've done that. What 
we want now — as I understand aunt Kate — is 
that you should live down the objections to us. 
One thing that puzzles me " — thoughtfully 
scratching the sparse parting of his hair — " is 
that our position is so very equivocal in regard to 
the real principle involved. It seems to me that 
we are begging the whole question, which is, if 
Blake" — 

Leslie : " There, there ! I hnew he would ! " 

Bellingham^ severely : " Mother, you will allow 
that I have been left to take the brunt of this 
little affair in a — well, somewhat circuitous man- 
ner?" 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Charles, I am very, very 
ifOrry " — 

Bellingham: "And that I am entitled to some 
«ort of reparation ? " 



182 Out of the Question. 

Leslie: "Don't allow that, mamma! I know 
he's going to say something disagreeable. He 
looks just as he always does when he has one of 
his ideas." 

Bellingham : " Thanks, Miss Bellingliam. I am 
going to have this particular satisfaction out of 
you. Then I will return to my habitual state of 
agreeable vacancy. Mother " — 

Leslie : " Mamma, don't answer him ! It 's the 
only way." 

Bellingham : " It is not necessary that I should 
be answered. I only wish to have the floor. The 
question is, if Blake were merely a gentleman 
somewhat at odds with his history, associations, 
and occupation, and not also our benefactor and 
preserver in so many ways, — whether we should 
be so ready to — ah " — 

Mrs. Bellingham : " Charles, dear, I think it is 
unnecessary to enter into these painful minutiae." 

Mrs. Murray : " I feel bound to say that I know 

we should not." 

Bellingham : " This is the point which I wished 
to bring out. Blake, here is your opportunity 
^enounce us ! " 



Mr. Charles BellinghanrCs Diplomacy. 183 

Blake : " What do you say, Leslie ? " 
Leslie: "I say that I don't believe it, and I 
know that I like you for yourself, — not for what 
you've done for us. I did from the first moment, 
before you spoke or saw me. But if you doubt 
me, or should ever doubt me " — 

Blake, taking in his left both the little hands 
that she has appealingly laid upon his arms : 
•* That 's out of the question ! " 



